DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the OCs introduced in this story and my other stories (except where stated).
Thanks to Crazyeight for beta-reading.
DIMENSIONS
BOOK SIX
Tricks
By Blazing Chaos
CHAPTER 46
The Trick to Harmony
SUNDAY, 24th OCTOBER 2010
Shinjuku Park, Shinjuku Ward
10:43 JST
"Rika?" Jeri asked, surprised at how the girl had made her entrance. What did she mean, "missing all the fun", and why did she look so ready for battle?
"CAN'T YOU JUST STOP?!" Chaos yelled, glaring across at the redhead with bitter irritation.
"Stop what?" Rika asked, evidently treating the question as the most idiotic one she had ever heard, something that was definitely a very high accolade from her.
"Trying to kill us!" Takato explained, still in disbelief about how Rika was simply ignoring his pleas. What on earth was controlling her, and how? Rika never seemed the type to be susceptible to mind games, and he highly doubted this was a mere mood swing.
"Why would we want to do that?" Renamon asked, narrowing an eye in bewilderment at the insane suggestion. Why would they ever want to stop this assassination attempt?
"What's going on?" Mari asked, confused and not noticing that she herself had fallen under the same spell as Rika. In fact, Jeri was just as oblivious, and the only one thankful for that was their joint target, Ryder. The others were irritated by the fact none of the girls had realised what was going on yet.
"I am trying to kill Takato, isn't it obvious?" Rika explained, her tone patronising and annoyed. How long could it take someone to understand an idea?
"What?!" Jeri gasped, hand going to her mouth in horror. "Rika, you can't."
"Guilmon…psst…Guilmon…pass me my crutches…" Ryder whispered, looking across to the stunned red dinosaur and being irritated when the saurian was too occupied to react. "Fine, I'll do it myself," he huffed, reaching across with his good arm to the pair of discarded implements. Perhaps he could make yet another attempt at escaping?
The cocking of a gun put an end to that idea, Mari casually aiming down to him. "Don't even try it," she spat. Jeri swivelling round at the sound of the noise in surprised, before the dark look returned to her face.
"Just hurry up and kill him already," she complained.
"What?" Rika gasped, looking across at where the other two girls were conspiring to kill another boy. What was going on? He wasn't Takato, what were they playing at?
"Fine with me," Mari said, smiling evilly as she pointed the gun towards Ryder's back, a steady hand once again.
"Wait a second; you're both trying to kill Ryder?" Rika said, Mari and Jeri looking up, tedium rife on their faces.
"Yeah," Jeri replied, whilst the three males up for execution silently got their hopes up. Any second now, the girls would realise what was really going on, and everything they had said would…
"I tell you what," Rika began, smiling widely as a new plan was formulated in her mind. "Let's work together to kill all three of them," she added, looking to Renamon who nodded in response.
"A perfect plan," Renamon agreed.
"Okay."
"Sounds good."
"What?!" Takato complained, Rika menacingly advancing towards him. He stepped back, losing his balance and stumbling to the ground.
"Takato, you are so bloody useless!" Chaos complained, as the line of the gun moved to point squarely at him and his alter-ego, the barrel hardly two feet from their back. This was getting dangerous.
"Then we'll take out the most dangerous target first," the pregnant redhead decided, smiling widely as her hands glowed the familiar blue tinge, and were set on a perfect aim at Takato.
Ryder stared across in horror as Renamon did likewise, crossing her arms in readiness to send her trademark move in the direction of the boy. "I have to do something!" he thought, but what could he do? He was as much of a target as Takato, they would hardly hold up if he ran in the way.
"I won't let you hurt Takato!" Guilmon complained, rushing in front of his Tamer with arms out, determined to block any attempt by Rika to kill his Tamer. Ryder could already see the flaw in the plan, despite the dinosaur's heroic intentions.
Jeri laughed in amusement: Guilmon's tactics were far from foolproof. "Takato will be shot in the back then."
Guilmon panicked, realising his error as he agitatedly looked behind. There was nothing he could do. Takato was going to die!
"Hmph, you really think I've never been held at gunpoint before?" Chaos asked, standing proudly to his feet, a suicidal move since it put him out of the defence of Guilmon's body. He smirked widely, hands glowing a blood red.
"Fire!" Jeri said to Mari, realising they would have a split-second chance before Chaos tried something clever, or dumb. Both ways, he'd probably find a way out of the present situation.
BANG!
Chaos smirked as his wings shot out, smashing into the bullet in flight and sending it well off course. It came at a minor cost, a hole torn through the reddish skin in the process. Rika growled in annoyance, as Chaos smirked eagerly, shooting up into the air as Harmony and Renamon fired their signature blasts of energy at him.
"DIAMOND STORM!"
"HARMONY'S BLAST!"
"CHAOTIC VORTEX!" Chaos replied, raising his hands and sending out a large spiralling tornado of energy to absorb both blasts, cancelling it out in the process. He glared down to Renamon, a dark look on his face. "Look familiar Renamon?"
Renamon simply growled in response, the harrowing memory of being trapped within that same vortex replaying through her mind and making her cringe. She couldn't let that happen again.
The gun cocked again, attracting the attention of the unbalanced deity away from his eternal opposite and towards the Second Angel. He angrily pointed out a finger, one tipped with red.
"Don't even dare!" he spat, Mari hesitating in her aim of the gun at Ryder. Sure, she could kill him, but it'd risk her own life in the process. Jeri took a step back; things were getting way too risky for her liking.
"Everyone, please, calm down!" Ryder pleaded; glancing over to the still-unconscious form of his partner with a frown as he painfully pushed himself to his feet again with one crutch. He had to help the dragon, even if the bullet itself had ceased with its stunning shocks of electromagnetic disruption. "Or more of us are going to get hurt!"
Chaos looked down at the boy, his face exasperated and his eyes tired. This had been such a pleasant day for him, he'd brought out his Goggles specially, but it'd turned so sour. Things had to stop, right now.
"HARMONIC DISC!"
"POWER PAW!"
Chaos screamed in agony at the unexpected attack that had crashed into his back, before he spiralled down towards the ground. Guilmon similarly screamed in pain, tossed across the plaza like a rag doll and being once again left weak and in pain. Rika smirked: their opponents had lost their upper hand in this battle. She looked over to the pained boy and his thrown partner, both as useless right now as each other.
"Next one," she said, raising her hands again to aim at the boy who had been the target of so many attempts on his life already this morning. "Shall I do the honours?" she asked, looking across to the Second Angel curiously. She didn't want to deprive the girl of her success.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to deal with him," Mari said, smiling before cocking her gun once again and putting it to the back of Ryder's head. Ryder sighed at the sound; evidently she had plenty of ammunition on her, and wouldn't be running out anytime soon. "On your knees!" she spat, Ryder complying in order to buy himself just that little bit more time. What he would do with it was something he still wasn't sure of, but it was better than nothing.
"Fine, but hurry up. This is getting so boring," Rika complained, putting her hands behind her head as she stretched out her uninjured arms. This was so easy; their targets weren't even making the slightest attempt at attacking them back. No wonder they were failing miserably.
"Mari, you're making a big mistake here!" Ryder pleaded, hoping dearly that they wouldn't be his last words as he felt the barrel once again press against his skull. This was going to be messy.
"I don't think I am," Mari replied monotonously. "Why would I be?"
"Ivy will kill you when she gets here, you know that?"
"That bitch can go to hell for all I care."
"An enraged blonde biomerged into an Olympus Twelve mega hell-bent on your death. I don't know about you, but I think maybe that's something to be worried about."
"I have DarkRenamon to protect me."
Ryder laughed, making Mari's expression falter in confusion as her glare was broken. How could he laugh at a time like this? What was so funny?
"Even if you could biomerge, which you can't, Kuzuhamon would be simply put to sleep by her Goodnight Moon attack…" "…finally, studying Ivy's future digivolution profiles comes in useful!"
Mari growled, pushing the gun further forward in anger. "I don't care, DarkRenamon will win."
"DarkRenamon won't listen to you! You shot her! Twice!"
"What?!" Jeri gasped, horror flashing through her eyes at the concept as Ryder inwardly cheered. He was slowly undoing the bonds between these girls, the foundation for their plans, and with that he could give them all the chance to survive.
"I…I had to get her out of the way to kill Ryder," Mari attempted to defend her actions, lowering the gun as she began to plead with her fellow brunette.
"But you attacked your own partner!" Jeri cried, not realising the hypocrisy of the situation.
Mari looked worried, someone finally managing to make her feel fully guilty and fully responsible for her actions. Rika just looked irritated by the turn of events: this was postponing her chance to get rid of Takato. Renamon, on the other hand, looked concerned: Mari had done something atrocious, and she was only now properly realising it.
"I know…but…" Mari hesitated, trying to think of a way to explain her actions. Jeri wanted Ryder dead too, didn't she? Surely it was all for the same cause? But Jeri didn't want Ryder dead, she wanted Henry dead, and that made a big difference in what she saw as acceptable.
"I lost my partner, and now you go and attack your own!" Jeri yelled, anger mounting in her voice as she forced herself to relive painful memories. "You're worse than him!" she spat, pointing at the boy on his knees.
"I…I'm sorry," Mari apologised, her arms falling to her sides as the full weight of her actions crashed into her like a ton of bricks. In the pursuit of homicide, she had committed genocide; a nuke to kill one person.
"About time you realised what's going on," Chaos cheered, his voice rough and pained as he and Guilmon stood up again, both as injured as each other. Chaos shot a glare across to Harmony, prompting Rika to stride over to the action with Renamon in tow. This was going to either end well, or badly.
"Now can we talk?" Takato asked, looking across to his fiancée desperately. The bloodshed, the pursuits, the attacks, they had to stop now before something really bad happened.
For a split second, seeing Takato, scratched and injured, Rika saw sense. Her mind clicked, things beginning to add up and redress the balance, but they were stopped. Like a shard of glass blocking the hands of a clock from moving, she faltered, her mind rushing back to her previous ways with a vengeance as her hands primed with blue.
"No!" she yelled, raising her palms and sending a pulse of blue energy in Takato's direction. It slammed into his form, the boy crying in agony as he was scoured across the ground. Rika smirked widely, advancing on the boy with malice in her eyes.
"Takato!" Guilmon cried, wincing at the pain of his Tamer, amplified by their link before he himself was thrown by a kick by Renamon. He ended up crashing down on top of his partner's injured form, making things even worse for the pair of them.
"Takato! Guilmon!" Ryder exclaimed, horrified as his intricate plan fell to pieces. This couldn't be happening! They were so close to safety, yet so far.
But there was still a chance. Mari and Jeri were on the verge of realisation: if they could be convinced to change their ways, then maybe he could still save them all.
"Please Mari, put down the gun," Ryder pleaded, pushing himself to his feet again and hoping dearly this would work. Jeri had locked into a continual glare, Mari faltering under the pressure of the girl's anger.
"I…I…I…" Mari mumbled, looking across to the Gogglehead worriedly. "I can't."
Ryder frowned, sighing as he contemplated the fact that this would be his end. It was something he had had a chance to contemplate a lot recently, but it still scared him. "God I hope I'm immortal...although then she'd just try to kill me forever."
He nudged backwards, a pointless act since Mari could move much faster than him.
Chaos growled, leaping to his feet with a roaring aura burning around him. His fists clenched angrily, his wings shooting out rapidly as Rika continued to advance on him.
"No more games," he growled, turning and catching Rika off guard by running across the plaza towards his fallen partner. He grabbed the Digimon's tail, not pausing as he dragged the dinosaur across the ground. Rika turned, too late to stop things as Chaos continued on and barged a startled Mari aside.
BANG!
The gun fired into the air, Ryder promptly grabbed by Chaos and pulled along the ground, crutches in tow. With a flap of Chaos' mighty wings, He soared over the heads of the girls below. Ryder felt his arm ache as it was pulled on by both Chaos and gravity. He thanked the heavens it was his good arm, although that did mean he could end up with no uninjured limbs. That would certainly make moving around difficult, perhaps impossible.
"I feel like a rag doll," Ryder thought as Chaos was forced to land by the sheer weight of those he was carrying and by his growing fatigue. Guilmon landed with a bump, Chaos twisting around as quickly as he could to see the three girls, now a considerable distance away across the plaza.
"Okay, I'm tired, Ryder's useless and Guilmon's slow…any ideas for how on earth we get out of this?"
"I've got none."
"Ugh, great use you are."
"Can you all just stop running away?" Rika groaned, annoyed by the continual escapades of the three males.
Ryder, deciding that getting to his feet, as painful as it was, was rather important in the pursuit of a quick escape, gripped his crutches and fought back against the pain wracking through his arm.
"Takato, what do we do?" Guilmon asked, both sides of the battle weighing up their current options.
Renamon frowned, Chaos probably had some considerable power banks remaining, but on the other hand the cost of using them could injure Takato. Ryder was just being lucky so far, and if left alone he should've been easy to dispatch, whilst Guilmon could prove trickier.
Ryder began to appraise the females, pondering which of them were truly dangerous. Mari had a gun and an aim to match, but Rika was part-God. If they lost their sight on Renamon, she could easily sneak up behind them, whilst Jeri seemed to be the least useful of them all, not least because she still viewed Mari with scorn.
"Ryder? Takato?"
Ryder and Takato turned to see a new figure approaching from the path behind, a large green insectoid Digimon having evidently placed him onto the ground only moments before. Ken's mouth hung open, surprised by the scene he turned up to see.
"Finally, some backup," Ryder cheered, a grim frown on his face. "Have you got a recharge card?"
"Uh…yeah," Ken replied, unsurely holding out the card to Ryder. He had no idea what was going on yet, but he was already being involved in the action.
"Thanks," Ryder replied, promptly using the card to rehabilitate his fallen partner. "DIGI-MODIFY…Recharge Activate!"
Jeri nervously looked across the battlefield to No Man's Land where Donmon's eyes opened, the bullet clattering away as he growled, pushing himself to his feet and looking about at the new state of affairs. "Ryder, you're alright!" he cheered, seeing his partner and beginning to run in that direction.
"Depends on your definition of "alright"," Ryder answered, frowning as he gestured to the blood-soaked makeshift bandage on his arm.
"What happened?"
"She missed, barely."
"Takato, what's going on?" Ken asked as he became thoroughly confused by the current state of affairs.
"Uh, I don't really know myself. I think the girls are trying to kill us because they love us," Takato replied.
"Yolei was doing the same thing."
"Wait, what?" Ryder gasped, it becoming clear as day that there was a specific pattern to these attempts on their lives.
"Stingmon and I only just made it out of there alive, but she could be after us soon."
"We have to stop this before someone gets hurt," Takato decreed, receiving nods of agreement from the others in response.
"Ken, we need to find the source of this mind control," Stingmon advised, Ken nodding in response.
"I agree Stingmon, but it could be anyone. How do we find them?" the blue-haired boy replied.
"And how do we stop them killing us while we look?" Ryder added grimly, looking back over to the girls. Rika, in their distractedness, had prepared another attempt, the blast shooting across the battlefield from the blue shimmering disc in front of her hands.
"HARMONIC DISC!"
Chaos promptly raised a large shield wall between them and the others, the beam of energy colliding with it and cancelling out. He frowned, feeling ready to fall asleep but knowing that they certainly didn't have the time for that right now.
"You okay Takato?" Guilmon asked, concerned about the welfare of his partner.
"Yeah, just a bit tired."
"I can give us shielding for a while, but we need to make the most of it."
"Where do we start looking anyway?"
"What on earth is going on here?!" spluttered a new voice, footsteps pounding towards them. They turned to face Chiyo, DarkBiyomon in tow, both looking horrified at the scene they had arrived at.
"They're trying to kill us!" Guilmon blurted, Chiyo's eyes widening in shock.
Inwardly, of course, she knew it was all a façade. The thing was the boys were putting up a much better fight than she had expected them to, and she was getting bored. So, how better than to speed things up by "helping them"?
"What?! Why?!"
Plus, it'd provide an alibi. No-one would suspect her if she herself was helping them, and was shocked by events. Sure, she could've turned up evilly laughing and ready to add to the firepower of the girls, but that would be far less…interesting.
"I think they're possessed by something," Ryder answered, looking across anxiously to Mari, reloading her gun and pondering another attempt. Jeri seemed completely out of place without any weapon to attack them with, but she seemed to be having doubts of her own about the morality of killing and hurting others to kill their targets. "Look, you're not possessed or anything…can you try to convince them?"
"Um…" Chiyo mumbled, frowning before she faked a worried look, looking down to DarkBiyomon. "I could, but what if they attack me?"
"So long as you don't get in the way, they won't."
"Please Chiyo, we really need your help," Ryder pleaded.
"Oh the irony…" "Okay, I'll give it a shot at least," Chiyo answered, wandering across the plaza towards the other girls. She began to ponder what she could say to them that wouldn't jeopardise her plan in the process. She wasn't too worried; this was a pretty powerful spell as had cast here.
Ryder crossed his fingers. Their only hopes lay on Chiyo Suzume.
Inevitably, the sky chose that moment to open, a lightning bolt creasing across the sky.
Tokyo Bay, Minato Ward
10:50 JST
The cold waters rushed over the greyish sands of the muddied beach, roughened by the storm winds that had begun to sweep along the bay. The sudden burst of rain did little to aid things, and neither did the loud rumble of the skies above.
Takeru felt sick as he opened his eyes again, his clothes soaked through and his blonde hair without its usual brilliance and shine. He choked up a fraction of the bay's water, dragging himself out of the sea and pushing himself to his knees. He remained bent over, coughing hoarsely for a moment as his mind concentrated on nothing else.
Once his mind was freed from that, however, alarm swept over it and his head and eyes darted about, looking for something conspicuously absent.
"Patamon!" he said, before being forced to clear his sore throat. His hand went to his oddly-bare head as he contemplated fearfully the fate of his partner. Where was he? Had he drowned? Could Digimon drown?
He heard a cough from nearby, small digital lungs (or whatever Digimon actually had, a discovery that pended the creation of the correct medical analysis equipment) attempting to dispel the rough feeling that had overcome them.
"You okay?" Takeru asked, fearful for his partner who was lying on his side endlessly choking.
"I've been better Takeru," Patamon replied, continuing to cough after speaking. He sat up and turned to face his Tamer with a frown. "Are you okay?"
"My lungs hurt, I feel sore all over and I've lost my hat. I'm fine."
"You have others, don't you Takeru?"
"Yeah, but that's not the thing," Takeru sighed, retrieving his D-Arc from his belt and being relieved that it wasn't damaged, or, indeed, wet, something he would've contemplated more if his mind wasn't elsewhere.
"Ophanimon really hurt huh?"
"You said it," Takeru answered, not taking his eyes off the screen as he tried to get both his own mind and his partner off that particular subject. "Worse still, we've lost track of them, and I don't even know what's causing it."
"Try emailing them," Patamon suggested helpfully, waving a wing towards the boy's pocket. He nodded, reaching inside and being glad it was buttoned up. Like before, the device wasn't even scratched as the boy lifted it to begin sending an email.
"I'll email Davis," Takeru decided, beginning to type away. "Kari wouldn't listen even if she weren't biomerged," he sighed.
"Maybe some of the others can help."
"So long as they're not controlled too."
"So is that what you think it is then Takeru?"
"Either that, or I have no idea. Kari never wants to fight anyone, let alone her friends."
"Yeah, and the last person I expected her to fight was Davis."
"…yeah…"
"Even if he can do some stupid things at times," the oblivious guinea-pig laughed.
"Okay, and…send…" Takeru announced, tapping the button and watching the little animation scroll across the screen. An eyebrow rose, quickly turning into an irritated forehead crease. "Failed to send."
"Maybe it's damaged or something?"
"I'm not sure how though, this thing doesn't have a scratch on it. I'll try sending it again."
Patamon nodded, before watching as his partner went through the same procedure again, pausing as he once again watched the animation. The same reaction, albeit more irritated, repeated itself.
"Today is not my day," he groaned, achingly pushing himself to his feet and running a hand through his sullen blonde hair, rain gently dropping into it regularly. "Come on, we'll go to Shinjuku Park. Maybe there'll be someone there to help."
8TH AUGUST 1945
Tamiko Residence, Nagasaki Prefecture
19:42 JST
"Please leave your shoes by the door," Naoko requested, turning to face her newfound companions as they entered the traditional home. It was a fair bit smaller than Rika's, although still evidently consisted of several rooms. A kitchen area was on one side, looking untidy and with dust beginning to accumulate on the unused elements of its cutlery. The other side consisted of the typical customisable Japanese room, although right now it had a small low table on it with a collection of pieces of paper, a sofa, a chair, and an old radio, with other furniture presumably in the cupboards lining the back. Between them was a traditional door seemingly leading out to a garden, the last rays of sunlight beaming through as night continued to consume them.
Henry and Rey nodded, promptly doing as they were told whilst Realmon and Terriermon continued to gaze around at the home.
"So do you get good TV reception here?"
"TV? Oh, TV...yes, I saw one once, but...didn't they close the stations down before the war?" Naoko asked, bewildered by the odd question.
"You'll have to excuse him, he's an idiot."
"Hey, Realmon! That's not fair! You hardly know me."
"Terriermon, I have known you for a lot longer than you've known me."
"Hey! Uh…Henry, help me here!"
"Terriermon, please stop getting us in more trouble," Henry sighed, running his hand through his hair in frustration.
"Sure, when everyone else does it it's an accident, but when I do it, it's my own fault."
"Sorry about him."
"I don't understand. Why does your partner ignore you like that?" Naoko asked looking to Henry curiously as the bunny constantly tried to get his attention.
Terriermon finally decided to get attention the usual way, by jumping onto Henry's head and butting into whatever conversation he was having at that moment. "It's cause Henry always scolds me too much."
"Hmph, a partner who does not listen to his Tamer. How pathetic," Renamon mocked, arms crossed where she stood away from them, over leaning against the wall.
"You sound just like the Renamon I know, you know that? Both of you are so rude," Terriermon complained, crossing his arms in annoyance and pouting.
"You know a Renamon?" Naoko asked, surprised by the reference. Pausing periodically, she glanced across to Rey, memories being flared up in her mind. "Rey, you knew Renamon's name when you first saw her."
"Yeah, we know this Renamon where we come from."
"Is she a tamed Digimon like me?" Renamon asked, curiosity plaguing her mind about her apparent cousin. Perhaps she wasn't the only one from the village to have fallen into the human world by accident.
"Yeah," Henry replied, smiling as memories of home returned to him. It seemed so far away now, all those trivial problems they had. Well, at the time they seemed so important, but compared to this…they simply couldn't compete.
"What's her Tamer like?" Naoko asked, the discovery making her wonder about whether she was alone in this business.
"Well, her name is Rika. She's…one of the best, even if she can be a bit hot-headed and tempered at times," Henry explained, pondering how to describe the girl in words. Rika was one of those people rather difficult to pin down in words alone.
"One of them? You mean there are more of you?"
Terriermon chuckled in amusement. "More? There are tons of us!"
"Really?" Naoko asked, surprised that she had never heard of such a group. Where could they be? How could they survive knowing that their Digimon would instantly get them shot or held indefinitely? "Where?"
Henry glared down warily to his partner. Was this really what they wanted to be talking about? They were obviously getting this girl's hopes up that there were other Tamers out there.
"Tokyo," Rey replied, interjecting into the conversation and coming up with a way to manoeuvre around certain obstacles. She decided to continue her normal game of playing cards close to her chest, since the wrong word now would reveal too much to both pasts, both that of Henry and of Naoko. "We're members of a secret organisation called SLEGNA. It's outside the government, and it manages the presence and role of the Digimon in our world."
"Our world?" Renamon asked, surprised by the reference. "You know of the other world then?"
"The Digital World, yeah, of course!" Terriermon cheered. "Great place, unless you don't like dying."
"The…Digital World?"
"Yeah."
"Hmm…we must be talking of different places then, I know of no such Digital World."
"Really? But you're a Digimon, you must have heard of it?" Henry asked, confused by how a Digimon could possibly not know of their home world.
"The only other world I know of is the World of Ideas."
"What's that?" Terriermon asked, confused.
"I did not see much of it before I fell into this world, but I lived in a village. A peaceful place called the Kabuki Village."
"Hmm…odd," Henry pondered.
Rey, seeing that perhaps too much was being disclosed here, decided to once again pull them off onto another thread of conversation.
"Well, anyway, in this organisation, we all have a role to play. We came here investigating…um…some Digital signals, and then we found you."
Naoko frowned, sighing deeply. "I see."
"Reflecting on it, it wasn't exactly the most logical of missions," Rey sighed, looking up at the ceiling and faking a distant look, something rather easy given who her father was.
Henry decided to fabricate this lie a little more. He was rather impressed, actually, with how well Rey had done it to start with. She clearly had spent their time walking here thinking very carefully. "Yeah, but everyone else was busy."
"The bombing at Hiroshima caused disruption on our equipment," Realmon sighed, frowning.
"Oh, yeah, I heard about that," Naoko noted, frowning. "I had family members out there. I was going to go stay with them, but they're probably all dead now."
"I'm very sorry to hear that," Rey said, her hand gently reaching out to reassure Naoko before she hesitated, realising that that would look very unusual in the past.
"Yeah," Naoko sighed, looking off into the distance before bringing herself firmly back to reality again, knowing there was nothing she could do about it. Renamon frowned as she observed her Tamer, saddened by the girl's depression about her family's death. "Please, sit down," she offered, gesturing across the room to the sofa.
"Thanks," Henry said, bowing lightly before he and Rey wandered over to sit on the worn sofa. Naoko took up a seat opposite them, evidently an older one more in the style of an armchair.
"So…" she mumbled, trying to figure out how to deal with this huge influx of new information. "What does SLEGNA stand for?"
Rey smiled lightly, as if she had been asked the question many a time before. "Oh, that's easy. Special Legislative Executive Guard of Normals and A…uh…well, actually…" she hesitated, blushing as she realised how close she had come to screwing things up here. "…uh…you know, I can't quite remember," she mumbled, Henry giving her a confused look. "Sorry."
"Oh, never mind then. How many of you are there in total then?"
"Ugh, don't make me count. Let's see, in SLEGNA itself, there are…" Rey pondered, beginning to count casually on her fingers as she stared off into space. "God, I really have no idea, sorry."
"Does the government know about you?"
"They know we exist, but they don't really know what we do."
"So it's a risky job then?" Renamon asked.
"Huh?"
"Well, the government would kill you for simply being seen with something that could be a secret weapon of the Allies, let alone harbouring a foreigner in your group," Naoko explained, eyes widened as she contemplated the impossibility of it all. She glanced over to Henry. "No offence," she apologised, receiving a dismissive shrug from the boy. The past was a racist time, and they couldn't simply whitewash things over.
"We stay undercover really," Rey explained. "There are a lot of grownups in our group…my mother, Rika…"
"She's your mother?" Naoko gasped, surprised. She'd imagined Rika to be someone about Rey's age, not an adult. "Isn't she worried you might get harmed?"
"She knows I have Realmon to protect me."
"Yeah, but…Realmon, I have been wondering. Why do you look like my champion form, Kyubimon?" Renamon asked, looking across to the smaller fox curiously.
"Um…" Realmon mumbled, glancing to Rey for guidance, and unfortunately realising that Rey had as little idea of what to do as she did. "I'm not sure."
"So how does SLEGNA work? What do you guys do each day?" Naoko asked, her mind still in shock about the organisation she had heard about. Dangerous and somewhat sinister as it sounded, it could be her way out of her current misery. The concept that it involved a family as well, and that it was beyond a simple cold organisation, had made her wish to find out about them even more.
"Basically, we find Digimon that have appeared in the real world, and we stop them from causing havoc."
"Really? Does that happen often in Tokyo then?" Renamon asked, surprised that such an incredibly rare event could be such a trivial one for these children.
"Yeah, it happens a lot. We use our digivices to find them…these things…" Henry began, before reaching down to his belt and retrieving his D-Arc to show the girl. He held it up in the air, a look of confusion crossing her face as she looked over it.
"Never seen one of those before," Naoko noted, looking carefully over the device, its green ring and its black screen as Henry held it out.
"Really?" Henry asked, surprised that someone could be a Tamer without one. It would take a pretty close bond to digivolve without one, something that only Takato had been known to do, and that was in a very climactic situation.
"Yeah, my one looks completely different to that," Naoko replied, pulling down her sleeve, lifting her arm in the air, and completely blowing Rey and Henry's mind with the sapphire device on it, one that promptly expanded to its full form and left no doubts as to its owner's real identity.
Rey gasped, unable to speak at first as Naoko eyed her, confused. What was this girl so surprised at? Had she seen a device like this before?
"Harmony?!"
"…WHAT?!"
TO BE CONTINUED…
Heh, it was pretty obvious from Survivor that Naoko is a previous incarnation of Harmony but Rey and Henry naturally hadn't realised that yet. Now they have, however, things are going to get very complicated, as if they weren't so already.
Until next time…
B.C.
