Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.
Digimon Trinity
Chapter: 165/ Episode 24: Different Battles
Rumiko was sitting at the kitchen table when Rika passed through, all dressed in her school's grey uniform. The redhaired girl raised an eyebrow at the older woman.
"You're still here?"
Rumiko cracked a wan smile that looked plastered on. "I canceled my photoshoot," she explained. Then her smile fell and she looked away. "It's for the best. I…I wouldn't be able to focus on it anyway."
Rika's expression softened, remembering their visit to the hospital last night. She had gotten a view of Davis briefly before breaking away to have a quick chat with Sora and Ken. Saying that the man looked like a mess felt like an understatement given the mass of bruises purpling his face and the swaths of bandages holding his head together while a machine assisted his breathing. She wondered how he would be if he came out of it.
When, she told herself, one hand clenching tightly into a fist. When he gets out of it. That old gogglehead is as stubborn as mine. And probably twice as thick-headed.
"Are you planning on visiting him, today?" she asked. Rumiko looked at her for one long moment, her eyes shining before nodding.
"I am," she said throatily. She sniffed and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms together. She looked back at her daughter. "Are you…?"
"Am I what?" Rika asked as her mother trailed off. Rumiko looked away, her expression troubled.
"I-It's nothing," she said before forcing on a bright smile that didn't fool Rika in the least. "Have a good day." Her smile slipped again and her lips tightened worriedly. "Please… Be safe."
Rika gazed at her for a moment before nodding. "I will," she said, sensing Renamon nearby, an eternal promise to her safety and wellbeing.
Rumiko watched her daughter leave the room, and a short while later, she heard the sound of a slide door opening and then closing. She slumped in her seat and laid her head on the table.
I couldn't ask her about her digimon, she thought, her eyes on the spot Rika had been. She took a shuddering breath and clenched her eyes shut, remembering Davis laying in the hospital bed and quickly replacing him with the nightmare image of her daughter in the same place with the same injuries. Her heart clenched tightly and her eyes reopened to fall on the engagement ring she and Davis had bought.
It's not fair. Why does it have to be her? Why either of them? Why does the digital world keep doing this? First Davis, then Spencer and now…now Rika!
She had been utterly distraught to learn about Rika becoming like Davis, and having been so for months, all under her very nose! How many of those nights she had been out involved her battling digimon and risking being killed? How many news reports had she heard involving some kind of digimon bio-emergence had she been involved in?
That man! Davis' friend! When he came to visit…! When he and Davis…
The realization that the reemergence of Davis into her life likely had to do with Rika's nightly activities made her stomach churn. She again looked at the ring on her finger, the diamond glinting slightly from catching a faint ray of morning sunlight.
He had kept this from her all this time?
With a cry of frustration, she pushed herself away from the table and hurried out of the dining area, her feet trying to race ahead of her mind and the direction it was going in. The sense of betrayal felt tremendous and warred greatly with her love for the man who had returned into her life. That love desperately wanted to outpace the burning wall of fire in her heart that demanded reprisal.
She knew however that it would be a losing race.
Hearing the sounds of a television playing, she followed it to a small room that her mother often used and soon enough she found her, seated at a table, the small television sitting next to the shrine of her late husband on and showing the news. The reporter was bringing more updates on the disaster of Meiji Avenue and the public reaction to it. Presently, there was a large crowd gathering now near the Shinjuku government building. Their faces were angry and an army of signs were raised above them. Images of digimon with bright-red X's over them along with other, less polite ones. Digimon being hung and pictures of dead humans. Humans being devoured by digimon. And on the protest signs marched. Rumiko's stomach recoiled again, imagining what that crowd might do to Rika if they found out she were a Digidestined.
Tamer, she corrected herself absently. Not that it mattered in the end. They were, for all intents and purposes, the same thing.
"It's a terrible thing, isn't it?" Seiko said, glancing in the direction of her daughter. Rumiko jumped slightly, having not realized she had been noticed.
"Y-Yes," she stammered out in response. She bit her lower lip, uncertain as to what more to say. It was a terrible thing. And it could have been a lot worse.
Did Rika help keep it from getting worse?
The image of the protests was then replaced by a soaring image of the destruction wrought upon the city. Meiji Avenue was a long line of cracked streets and broken buildings. Islands of destruction dotted around it, and through it all was a long trench that had been carved by some tremendous force. Smoke still rose from it all as emergency workers continued to work, searching for survivors and assessing the extent of the damage to the city's infrastructure.
"How…How did Rika get through all of that and still be all right?" she found herself asking aloud, her voice quavering. Seiko glanced at her from out of the corner of her eye.
"Her partner is very resourceful," she replied. "And she has friends as well."
"So does Davis," Rumiko said quietly, leaning against the side of the doorframe, her expression downcast. "And look where he is."
Seiko looked up at her more fully, her lips pressing together into a thin, tight line.
"Rumiko, why don't you sit down?"
"Mother…" Rumiko began in protest, but upon seeing the familiar, welcoming look on her mother's face, she found herself unable to resist. Almost at once, she felt like a child again as she entered the room without any further complaint save for a sullen expression. Seating herself on a cushion, she scowled at the table.
"Are you going to tell me that excess worrying leads to premature wrinkles?" she asked.
"I wouldn't tell you to not worry," Seiko replied, pressing her lips together. "Rika's your daughter after all, and I've worried about her often enough every time I heard a report on the news about another digimon attack."
Rumiko closed her eyes, remembering the bombshell that not only Davis knew about Rika's extracurricular activities, but so did her own mother. It was still a bitter pill to swallow knowing she had been kept out of the loop like that. It might have been Rika's responsibility to tell her and it was her responsibility to talk to her more, but what did any of that matter when the two other people in her life that she loved dearly were both keeping secrets from her? How could she talk to her daughter when Rika refused to even speak to her about something so important? Davis and Seiko should have been another line of support for her and instead she had been left out to dry.
"Then…what would you tell me?" she asked harshly, opening her eyes and setting her violet orbs upon her mother. Seiko met her gaze levelly, but could see the hurt within them. Rumiko winced inwardly. She hadn't meant to lace her words so venomously, but she couldn't help it. She was still angry and upset and so very afraid of what would happen to Rika. The emotions bubbled inside her, aching for release.
"Rumiko…" Seiko took hold of one of her hands and squeezed it lovingly. "I don't know if there's anything I can do to make this easier for you. But I do know that this hasn't been easy for Rika. She has been doing her best to keep you and everyone she cares about safe from harm. I can only guess as to how she feels every time she comes home. Please. Remember that for her sake."
Rumiko looked up from her mother's hand and back toward her eyes. She saw the genuine concern in those lilac irises. The desire to help her through this and come to an understanding about Rika's actions. Maybe even to give her the strength of will to confront her over them.
Rumiko, however, disentangled her hand from the older woman and pushed herself back to her feet.
"I…I need to go," she said quietly, her voice hard.
###
Takato found himself making his way through the park more slowly than he thought he would. His body seemed to want to take its time so he could take in the sights and sounds of his home; to imbed it deep within him before he ventured off into the digital world.
The digital world. The thought continued to sober him. More and more he felt that he should be out there, looking for a way to that other dimension, but at the same time, saying goodbye to the world he knew and grew up in was so very hard.
I wonder what the digital world is like, he found himself musing. I mean, all the documentaries said that it was a lot like our world, only with some weird differences. Like upside down pyramids and things like that. But it was always hard getting any pictures from there for some reason.
He sighed. I just hope it's not too crazy and that we can get back home pretty quick. I don't know what we'll do if we end up having to stay as long as the Digidestined did. Somehow, I don't think any of the things Kai taught me about fishing is going to help me much over there. It'd probably be my luck that I'd catch a Numemon or something.
Exiting the tree line, he found the old concrete dinosaur hangout where his friends were waiting for him. Henry, Terriermon, Kazu, Kenta, Leomon and…Jeri.
His eyes softened as they fell upon the brown-haired girl. Seeing this, she smiled at him. Lifting her sock puppet, she woofed in greeting.Takato felt heat rising in his cheeks in response.
"H-Hey, guys," he said, waving halfheartedly.
"Top of the morning to you," Kazu nodded. "Man, what took you so long, Chumley? You know if we show up late, Ms. Asaji's going to make us stand in the hall." The visor-wearing boy shook his head. "Man. She's crazier than a fruit bat and twice as hard as Ms. Kamiya about this stuff."
"Huh?" Kenta looked at his friend as though he had grown a second head. "What do you mean? So far she's been exactly the same."
"That's because you haven't been paying attention. I bet she's some kind of clone sent to give us detention for when the next Deva shows up."
"You're being paranoid…"
"Only because she's out to get me!"
"More like only because you made an impression on her," Jeri giggled. "How are you doing, Takato? Are you all right?"
"Yeah, you seem to be a little on the sluggish side," Terriermon chimed in. "No offense, but you're later than usual. Even for you."
"Sorry," Takato smiled. "Just a lot of stuff on my mind."
"I'll bet," Henry nodded in understanding. The events of yesterday were, understandably, all over the news and had been nonstop. There was already a backlash brewing against the digital world with more and more people demanding action. He and Terriermon had gotten their fair share of dirty looks along the way here.
Fortunately, dirty looks were all they were, he thought. But how long is that going to last?
"Well, as much as I'd like to hear about it, we've got to get going." Kazu planted his hands on his hips, looking very much like he wanted someone to suggest skipping so they could get on with the meat of their day; finding a way into the digital world. When no one suggested this however, he sighed and looked up at the massive, hulk of a digimon standing behind Jeri. "All right, Leomon. It's time we got going."
"We'll be back in a few hours," Jeri said, bowing to her partner. Leomon nodded to her.
"Have a…good day, Jeri."
"We'll try. Oh!" Jeri looked over at Takato. "I wanted to ask you, but could Leomon stay at Guilmon's place for today? I know it's not very convenient but…"
"Oh, yeah, don't worry about it," Takato said hastily before she could finish, the heat in his face returning. Leomon glanced at the young, goggle-wearing boy and let out an amused grunt. Takato blushed even harder as a result. Terriermon giggled.
"Well, now that you have that out of the way, Casanova, don't you think you ought to get going? I don't think you'll have as much luck trying to charm your new teacher out of giving you detention."
Henry sighed. "Terriermon…"
"Uh… Who's Casanova?" Takato blinked, confused.
"Forget about it," Henry said with a shake of his head, starting off. Takato exchanged a look with Jeri, who was blushing brightly. Undaunted however, she bid Leomon another goodbye before joining the rest of their troupe. Takato soon fell in line next to her.
"I'm glad to see that you didn't have any trouble, last night," Takato said. "Er… You didn't have any problems, right?"
"Oh no," Jeri beamed, her blush starting to recede a little. "I mean, it was a near thing because the only place I could hide him was on the roof, but it was late enough where it wasn't an issue." Her eyes took on a distant look for a second, remembering when Leomon had returned to her. She had been so relieved then, having spent much of the night fretting that Leomon might try to keep his distance from her again, as he had before their partnership. Yet, he seemed to resign himself to their joined fate and made no complaints about it.
"I'm just glad that I have a place he can stay until I can talk to my dad," she continued, her expression becoming uncertain. "With everything that's going on, I'm a little afraid about how he'll react to my being a Tamer."
"Yeah." Takato glanced away, thinking about his own parents and how he still hadn't spoken to them about Guilmon. He doubted they would be thrilled to find out that not only had he been involved in yesterday's battle, but had been putting life and limb in jeopardy on a regular basis in defense of the city.
"Well, I'm sure if you explained it to him, he might understand," he added, giving her a supportive smile.
Jeri, however, looked away, her eyes uncertain. Her puppet hand twitched, as if aching to say something she couldn't, but she grasped hold of it with her free hand and stilled it, opting instead for silence. Takato pressed his lips together, taking note of this. He kicked himself mentally. He should have been more understanding and not say things so easily. He of all people knew how difficult it could be to tell one's parents about being a Tamer and he didn't know what her home situation was in the first place. Now he had inadvertently poked a wasp nest and upset her.
Great. What else can go wrong? he found himself wondering as they continued on in silence.
###
Rei finally switched over to WarGreymon's perspective just in time for them all to catch a glimpse of a fountain of crimson spraying into the air. Where it went, strands of red thickened and hardened, becoming thick ropes that streaked down and imbedded themselves into the digital world's earth. Kari's mouth fell open as the ropes suddenly bent and then hoisted something from out of the ground. A great, worm-like entity thrust itself forth and a featureless head probed about in the fresh air. As Kari watched, she saw it begin to track WarGreymon. What it could be thinking, she had no idea, but she doubted it was anything friendly.
"What…is that?!" she asked in a hushed voice, looking at Tai for answers. The Digidestined of Courage frowned.
"Is that an…Anamon?"he asked to no one in particular. He shook his head. "But I've never seen anything like this. Rei, can you get anything more on this thing?"
"What is an Anamon?" Kari asked. She had never heard of the term before, nor ever seen a creature like this in all her dealings with the digital world.
"Short for Analog Monster," Rei said. "They're another form of AI, similar to digimon but different. Gennai began discovering some showing up a few years ago, but there weren't very many of them and they stopped appearing after a while."
"Apparently there was also a game or something about them that was around about the time we first went to the digital world," Tai added. "It never caught on, which might be why there aren't that many in the first place. But when they do show up, they can cause a pretty big mess." He frowned. "Gennai said they have their own world too and they don't usually cross over into the digital world unless something happens."
The screen flashed with bright light as WarGreymon lobbed a Terra Force at the creature. The chariot rocked violently seconds later, causing Kari to almost fall to the floor.
"I think it's about time we got out there and made a little mess of our own," Etemon said, catching Kari. "It's got no reason to attack our li'l buddy out there. Maybe we can convince it to back off."
"Couldn't we try talking to it first?" Kari suggested, righting herself. Etemon looked at Tai and Rei. Rei shook her head.
"I remember some of Gennai's notes about them. No one seems to be able to talk to them and they don't seem interested in talking back."
Kari looked back at the screen. The smoke from WarGreymon's attack was clearing. The creature was a smoking ruin, but more red liquid was spilling forth from the hole in the ground, quickly reinforcing its brethren while widening the 'doorway' into the digital world. Indeed, as she watched, digital particles floated away as the ground disintegrated at its touch. As Kari watched, a new 'worm' creature rose up from the red pool and looked right up at WarGreymon. She shivered, feeling as though it were focusing on her and not WarGreymon.
Just then, as if to confirm her fears, the screen flickered and a series of zeroes and ones, binary code, ran along it.
01000100 01100001 01110010 01101011 01101110 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110100 01100101 01100011 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 01000010 01100101 01100111 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110100 01110010 01101001 01100101 01110110 01100001 01101100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01110001 01110101 01100101 01101110 01100011 01100101 00101110
"That's…not good," Rei said, her hands hovering uncertainly above her control panel. "Whatever that thing is, it found a way to hack through our connection with Agumon. I…"
"We've got to pull back," Tai said, looking away from the code and anxiously at Kari.
"What? What's going on?" Kari asked, her heart leaping into her throat. "Tai! What did that say?"
The chariot shook again and suddenly the screen exploded as metal deformed all around it. Rei screamed in surprise, jerking back in her seat as glass fell all about her.
"Rei!" Tai shouted, whirling her about. "Rei, are you all right?"
"I-I'm fine," she stammered out as he checked her over for cuts. "Mostly just surprised." She looked over at her control panel and winced as it sparked, sending curls of smoke rising above it. "Ah, nuts. We lost contact with WarGreymon."
"We'll be losing a lot more than that if we stay put," Etemon said, grabbing hold of the metal door and hoisting it open. "Little Buddy. I'm going to need some help with this one, I think. Your partner's going to need all the help he can get and I'm not strong enough as I am right now to be his backup singer. You catch my drift?"
Tai looked at him and drew out his digivice. "Loud and clear, Etemon. Let's do this."
Before Kari could ask what they meant, light burst forth from Tai's digivice, overwhelming the tiny cabin. Etemon's body seized up as raw power surged through the muscles in his body. A shell of data formed about him, emblazoned with the Crest of Courage. As he began to transform, words came unbidden to his mouth.
"Etemon! Digivolve tooo…"
Shining, golden armor sparkling in the light of the sun formed along the great ape, and upon a belt was the Crest of Courage. A great, crown of red sprouted forth from atop his skull and behind him billowed a cape of bright crimson. Shoes, black and pointed at the toes, digitized about his feet and a red visor replaced the black shades that were his calling card. The shell of data broke apart and the great King of Rock thrust himself out into the open, completing his transformation just as he finished announcing it.
"…KingEtemon!"
Crossing his arms together, the King of Courage smiled. His teeth shone brilliantly as he took in the red mass that was now stalking towards them. He flung his cape back, revealing his massive pectorals, shining brightly with the kanji for Great King emblazoned on them for all to see.
"So what do we have here? A dope who thinks he's a superstar? I hope you're ready to play your final number, baby, because I'm the number one single in this town!" he yelled defiantly, standing tall and proud against the oncoming storm. "Uh-huh-huh!"
###
A/N: During a recent run of Digimon Tamers, I noticed something peculiar. Believe it or not, in episode three, Takato has a poster by his bed of something called Analogu Monsters (written in English. I believe it's meant to be spelled Analog though and might have been spelled differently due to linguistics) with some kind of thin-limbed creature above the title. It's pretty hard to make out but it seemed very much like a Cthulu type entity. No further details about it as far as I can tell exist but I began thinking about it after catching it on my recent watch-through and felt that I couldn't resist adding it to the Trinity world. Anamon would have a very different lifecycle/evolution compared to digimon. There's a lot about analog that I can't really get into as my research so far has been pretty quick and dirty, so take what I'm writing here with a grain of salt. I offer my sincerest apologies as well to anyone with more knowledge on the topic and welcome anyone who can add more. The most consistent themes that I've been able to uncover so far have been:
One: Information is translated into electric pulses of varying amplitude. Appears to be continuous as well and very smooth.
Two: The variety appears to be pretty wide. Signals can have set maximum and minimum ranges, but have an infinite number of possible values, which is contrasted with digital information that is binary.
The primary difference between analog and digital seems to be that digital has binary values and will appear like a series of steps or squares, as opposed to the smooth, continuous signals of analog. Additionally, analog appears to be susceptible to 'noise' compared to digital.
The digimon life cycle, while featuring some analog elements (particularly necessary when bio-emerging according to some sources), is, of course, digital. Digimon evolution forms, while varied, will usually have a light side or a dark side. Digimon individuals within a species often feature very little variation, and their evolution is seen as a series of steps that can go up or down in strength depending on the form or circumstances of their evolution.
What's this mean about Anamon? I envision Anamon as having a different form of evolution. One that can change in power depending on circumstances, but will be a single, base form that can add on refinements, similar to how a biological organism maintains a single form but can change subtly as it matures and ages. I suspect that the D-Reaper is probably more along the lines of an Analog Monster and this could explain why its form overall changes very little compared to digimon.
Binary translator:
01000100 01100001 01110010 01101011 01101110 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110100 01100101 01100011 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 01000010 01100101 01100111 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110100 01110010 01101001 01100101 01110110 01100001 01101100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01110001 01110101 01100101 01101110 01100011 01100101 00101110
Darkness detected. Begin retrieval sequence.
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