Author's Notes
Three chapters to go after this, so I'll update for the next three Sundays.
Time-wise, this chapter coincides with the previous one, and there are some parallels. You might need to reread the previous chapter…unless you remember what happened at the end.
If anyone is wondering about to the significance of me using Arachnemon as a troublesome character, it's just spider symbolism. Apart from that, she's your usual digimon causing too much trouble and having a fan-club which can get pretty annoying. Sort of channels the "evil" Ranamon in that way.
Excuse my Mercurimon English. I don't think I can quite manage it, but I'll translate anyway. It sounded okay when I said it out loud though.
Perhaps thy treatment of this quaint lady needs to be perpended. – Perhaps your treatment of this beautiful lady needs to be considered.
Tis but an assumption, but hath not the sun faded too early for thy afternoon? – I'm just assuming, but hasn't sun faded too early for the afternoon? Ie. hasn't it set to early?
Did anyone realise that the last two chapters was also called chapter 7 on the page? That was my mistake. I copy the summary so I don't get too far off track (generally, not always) and for formatting purposes also the chapter title. I forgot to change it those times. I'll go and do that now.
A tad short, but it needed to be since it's purely a DW chapter. Enjoy, and tell me what you think.
Slaves to the Trade
Money. Power. Domination. These things caused his world to be stripped away. 'You may hold my body, but my soul is free.' Can that truth be saved, or is it doomed to be forever squelched beneath a master?
Character/s: Kouichi K
Genre/s: Drama/Angst
Rating: T
Chapter 10
They really should have expected as much. As fickle a demon that Arachnemon was, she would have a few tricks still up her sleeve. All of them had mistakenly assumed however that once the leader was behind bars, her straggling fan-club would break up. That was what had happened with Ranamon after all, a point which the fire-warrior had unwisely reminded her of.
The result had been a storm that left all three of them drenched. It was only the shields, one lionesque and the other a reflective mirror surface, that had saved their two (rather innocent, all things considered) companions from the same fate. Although it had been, Mercurimon grumbled, rather unbecoming to reduce his precious weapon and defence to a simple umbrella.
Lowemon had laughed heartily at that, causing the drenched water-sprite and fire-cracker to look over.
'Hey!' Aguninon shouted at the pair, who had wisely decided to bring up the rear and not get tangled into their little snits. 'You two should have shared.'
'Only room for one,' the warrior of darkness said with a straight face and even tone, but Mercurimon couldn't help but crack a grin. Perhaps because the lips on his central mirror were the only way he could express emotion without speaking...if one chose to ignore subtle changes in posture. That was unfortunately a rather moot point on his part, as due to the reflective surfaces that covered a large proportion of his body he had very little "subtle" mobility to speak of.
'Don't you give me that.' The blazing blue eyes glared at the warrior of steel. 'You've got two of 'em.'
He shrugged. 'Perhaps thy treatment of tis quaint lady needs to be perpended.'
'Why thank you sugah,' Ranamon said, flattered as she shook out water droplets from her fins.
Arachnemon shook herself too, but all four legendary warriors (doubling up as escort guards) were too far for the wayward droplets to stretch, although it would have done little except annoy them. Instead, they fell onto the cracked ground, the dryness quickly gobbling up its blessing of moisture.
The rest of the water was quickly sucked up as well. And a few minutes later Lowemon found himself wishing he hadn't blocked the water, if only so it could now offer him some relief from the heat. Of course, the downside, and the main reason his reflexes had shot out to block the onslaught in the first place, was that the water had an inherent property that sucked the strength out of other digimon.
Luckily, not even that could get Agunimondown, otherwise the flame warrior would find himself being dragged by both legs.
Mercurimon, having absorbed the water, shot a little up to the sky before dousing his metal surface. Apparently, he was heating up in the sun, and no doubt, Lowemon assumed, it was far more painful than sweating bullets beneath armour.
He slipped his gauntlets off before removing his helmet, using the latter to store the former. His staff and shield only appeared when he needed them…which was a good thing as he could well do without the extra baggage. As it was, they were taking turns dragging the prisoner along in the sand in pairs, leaving him to lead and Mercurimon as the rear. He had to be the rear, otherwise the glare from the mirrors blinded the rest of them.
'What is the point of havin' Trailmon?' Ranamon exclaimed at that precise moment. 'If they're on strike all the time. It's always one thing after ano'er. My wheels ah too hot. It's too dry. The tracks ah rusted.'
'Patience milady,' Mercurimon cautioned. 'Tis-' He stopped suddenly. 'Tis but an assumption, but hath not the sun faded too early for thy afternoon?'
Lowemon shielded his eyes with his spare hand, looking over to where the sun would set in a few hours to the west. Mercurimon had a point. It was far darker than it should have been at that point in time. None of them had noticed, but it had been growing steadily darker…and too early. The sun was almost hidden behind the mound of…
Hold on a sec. He narrowed his brown eyes, trying to stare closely. Was it just him, or was something moving there?'
He made to voice his observation, when there was a shriek from Ranamon. The next moment, she was flailing as the crack beneath her feet threw her off balance.
He just managed a glimpse of a silver nose when there was the unmistakable sound of something breaking. Then there was something swarming towards them.
It was almost like the ground was moving. But it wasn't. It was only until they'd managed to burn away most of the things they had assumed to be digimon that they realised that if the Kodokugumon were swarming them, then the mother had to be somewhere too.
Unfortunately, they all had their hands full, between the swarm attacking en masse (Agunimon and Mercurimon tag-teamed them), the Digmon that was drilling holes (Ranamon got that one by default), and Arachnemon, which left him.
And it was a very lucky thing he had his shield, otherwise he would be a gooey mass of green liquefied data. As it was, it was also very lucky that his shield, transparent as its design was, could block the acid and wasn't, like WarGreymon's digizoid shields for example, dissolved by it.
They should have realised the following of spiders had given up all too easily.
But the others should have realised that the legendary warriors had more than their digimon forms on their sides. They had the power of the elements too.
And the power of friendship.
'Hey, Lowe. You okay?'
The voice registered in his brain only half a second before the world spun, and he was coughing hard, and suddenly, every tidbit of data in his body was screaming out in pain.
It took several minutes after that for the coughing to halt. It to several more to process what was being said to him, namely due to the dizziness that had settled in.
'Come on. Let's get the lot of you back.'
The world blinked out again.
'Tell me,' where the next words he heard. 'Who was playing the hero again? You do realise who has to patch the lot of you idiots up every time?'
He blinked rather blankly, staring at the hazy ceiling and watching it come back into focus.
There might have been a sigh. Or perhaps it was just the whistling of the wind. He wasn't too sure. All he knew was he felt as weak as a newborn kitten not yet weaned off her mother's milk. Every breath, echoing strangely in his ears, felt like a chore. His head felt stuffed with fog and needles pricking at his head, and there was something numb sitting somewhere just below his chest.
The moment that registered, Angewomon's gloved fingers were gently prodding the distal area, her face hovering above his own, staring intently into his eyes, the irises of which looked about as clear as mud…literally.
When her fingers touched the skin under his ribcage, the pain suddenly hit him like a knife driving into his gut.
And then he was coughing again, missing the angel-doctor's confusion.
The next time he awoke, every muscle in his body protested to the movement, namely because there was no energy in them. His chest felt oddly hollow though, almost like something had been removed. Something important.
He raised a hand to feel the flesh (relative) under the armour.
'There's nothing there,' Wolfmon's voice said, somewhere next to his ear. 'Angewomon thought you might have been hallucinating from the poison. All four of you got a pleasant dose of it.'
'Pleasant?' The lion groaned.
'You wouldn't be saying that if you got a blast of that stuff in your face,' Blitzmon's voice interjected somewhere to his right…and a tad too loudly because it elicited a wince as his head thumped angrily at the noise. 'Seriously. That stuff's totally vile.'
'How'd you taste it?' Fairymon's curious voice asked.
'I didn't,' the legendary warrior of thunder replied. 'But Arachnemon's was bad enough. Dokugumon specialise in poison.'
'Eergh, don' remind me sugah,' Ranamon's voice groaned, sounding rather worn but otherwise alright. 'Was that Lowemon ah hear?'
Lowemon blinked at the ceiling. 'I haven't said anything.'
Fairymon squealed and made to hug him tight. Luckily, Grottomon was there as well, and he stopped her before she could physically crush his rib-cages. They may not have been hurt, but the echo of pain was still there.
'Now yeh have,' Ranamon yawned. 'Ah'm going' to bed.'
She fell quiet after that, and there was the sound of chucking. Blitzmon, if the warrior of darkness was not mistaken.
'So.' That was Wolfmon again. 'How are you feeling now?'
Lowemon blinked up at the ceiling. How was he feeling? That was a good question, but he didn't think he'd be able to come up with a simple answer.
His head was still slightly…well, light. It felt like it was partially floating, but less so with each awakening. Almost like the darkness in which he slept brought him closer to the ground of the Digital World, but further away from a dream he had been having, or another life he had been living. His chest on the other hand, or perhaps more specifically his heart, felt…empty. As if something was missing. Something had disappeared…and he'd never get it back. He just couldn't place what.
'I think I need some more sleep,' was all he said in the end. Somehow, that managed to sum everything up.