Digimon Tamers 2: The Rise of Zero
Chapter 25
Zero was stubborn. They had encountered five rogue digimon since Yamaki had offered his idea, and Zero had absorbed precisely none of them. No matter how much they argued with him, he would not absorb any data of digimon he didn't consider deserving enough. He kept saying that most digimon don't come here by choice, even thought they are violent when they do come. They had yet to find a digimon that came here on purpose to destroy the real world. Until they did, Zero would do nothing.
Renamon tried to reason with him but had no luck. If she couldn't persuade him, no one could. But she was thankful for one thing. He never kept himself alone anymore. He never went off to stand thoughtful on a random building somewhere. And he no longer kept himself locked up inside. He joined the others everytime they got together and never left until they parted ways for the day. He also rejoined Renamon at night, sometimes they even slept. Rika, whilst glad that he was keeping himself around them, became increasingly annoyed by the noise those two made on most nights. She couldn't help but notice that it was Renamon that made most of it, a fact that Zero was very smug about.
It was after the deletion, and lack of absorption, of the sixth digimon to bioemerge that the tamers lost their patience.
"Are you trying to be awkward Zero?" Henry asked, clearly annoyed.
Zero stared at him, causing Henry to shift uneasily under his piercing gaze.
"What gave you that idea?"
"Well," Rika intercepted. "This is the sixth digimon to come through recently, and you have once again made a point of not absorbing it. You haven't even fought any of them either. We're starting to think you don't want to digivolve again."
Zero's gaze shifted to her, yielding the same reaction. He began to like his stare.
"I have my reasons, ones you know all too well."
Then it was Takato's turn.
"We know you don't like this idea, and that you would rather not do it, but this is getting us nowhere. If you don't start absorbing data you'll never be able to digivolve. At least this way there is a chance. Doesn't it bother you?"
Again Zero shifted his gaze, and again he got the same reaction. He really loved his stare. Renamon caught on to what he was doing and slapped the back of his head.
He shot her an aggressive glance before addressing Takato.
"Of course it bothers me. But for the time being I don't see much use of digivolving. As much as I want to protect this world, I don't want to become the very type of digimon we are fighting."
"I explained this to you before Zero." Renamon stated. "You are not one of them. You have a kind heart. A thick head, but a kind heart." Zero glared again at this. "Absorbing digimon when you need to doesn't make you one of them. Power crazed digimon absorb what they can just because they want to. You have a need to do it, not a want. You are, and always will be different as a result."
Zero became thoughtful again, something he wasn't used to in such frequency. He knew she was right, she was always right. But he still couldn't bring himself to do what needed to be done. They were asking him to scavenge data from digimon they defeated. He could not do that, it would make him worse than the ones they fought. He had to defeat them himself, it wouldn't make absorbing them any easier but at least he would be the one to defeat them.
Without another word he bolted away to a nearby roof, leaving behind three confused and annoyed tamers and three equally affected digimon.
Zero moved from rooftop to rooftop, not really going anywhere. Just roaming around looking for answers in his head. He found he thought better while he moved, using the rhythmic effort of building jumping to clear his head. He could sense Renamon behind him, following him but not attempting to catch him. She obviously forgot his sensing range was larger than hers, even if it was less refined.
He had been roaming for just over an hour when he felt the long awaited surge of energy. He stopped and pinpointed its location as a blue beam shot towards the sky.
'Showtime.'
Zero entered the digital field that had formed close by, bracing himself for what was to come. He didn't mind the fighting, it was what was going to come after that he wasn't happy about. He sensed the rogue as it came through and immediately slipped into his fighting stance. It was then that he became aware of what this digimon was.
It looked like another regular Agumon. Same shape and size, but the wrong colour. It was black. Then there was the overwhelming sense of darkness around it. Zero smirked. This rogue was a dark digimon, he had no issues with deleting and loading these. He dropped his doubts and fears and went on the offensive.
"Blood Storm!"
The dark Agumon narrowly avoided instant deletion, much to Zero's annoyance, and swung at him as he ran past.
"Pepper Breath!"
Zero heard the shout from behind him moments before he was struck by the fireball, scorching his back as he felt his fur burn away. He yelped loudly in pain, why was he taking such s beating from one Rookie?
He spun around after recovering his balance and faced the rogue again. He could feel small particles of data escaping from his injured back, but he paid no attention to his status. This rogue was going down one way or another.
He cursed himself for being so weak. Before he could bring down Champion level dark digimon without receiving a scratch. Now even a regular rookie was too much for him, let alone a dark one. He also cursed at losing his rapid regeneration he had before, something else that was taken when he purged his fury. He snarled in rage and charged the dark digimon again.
"Blood Paw!"
The rogue again dodged to the side to avoid Zero's attack, but Zero knew he would do this and dodged in the same direction. His fists connected fully with the dark Agumon, propelling back and into a tree. He saw the rogues outline shift slightly, showing signs or destabilising. He charged again before it could stand, his Blood Paw still active.
The rogue saw his impending destruction and did the only thing it knew.
"Pepper Breath!"
At this range Zero had no chance of dodging, especially as his fists was charged with his attack and was inches from the Agumon's head. He struck the dark digimon in the forehead just after it released it's attack, destroying the rogue but sending himself back as his chest burned with searing agony.
Now it was his turn to hit a tree, rolling to a stop as he fell to the ground. He saw the dark digimon's data float away and could do nothing to absorb it from where he was. He simply watched it dissipate as he felt his strength fade. All that for nothing. So determined to take responsibility for the data he absorbed he threw himself recklessly into a fight he couldn't walk away from. Never before had he felt so foolish. Once more his pride had taken priority, even though he had believed it was a killer. A fact he pointed out in his first spar with Renamon.
And here he was, on death row once again. He felt he should have learnt from at least one of the times before this that his choices weren't always right. Some lessons, it seemed, were never learnt.
He senses the approach of the tamers and their digimon as the digital field faded away with the rogues data, but he didn't care. He felt his weight lessen at a rapid pace, he saw his body glow. He was sure the others could also see it, and from the sounds he could barely make out they seemed to think he was digivolving. How wrong they were.
Zero's form shimmered before shrinking to a fraction of his former size. As the light faded a Blood Viximon laid in place of his Rookie form. Only then did the others realise what was going on and rushed to his side. His eyes opened weakly before he managed to speak in his unusually high pitched voice.
"Call me that word and I will kill you."
Terriermon paled slightly, resisting the urge while Renamon spoke for all of them.
"We wouldn't dream of it."
"Good," was all could Zero say before he passed out.