one
The Ocean washed away the pain of death, they said. No one lived there, only lurked there, only waited there for the village to open its door, to come from the shore.
Then a boy washed up on File Island, lapped in greywater. A black necklace shined red on his neck, the little pink crest gleaming without being awake as color ran over his skin. A pale blue device was clenched in the boy's fingers, the size of his extended hand.
The waves lapped at his skin.
The sea did not pull him back. It shies away as he stirs. Crusted golden eyes open and stare listlessly at the environment around him. Then he picks himself up in slow, lurching steps and clambers his way from the beach.
"Bam," chimes from the digivice. "Bam, you need to start a fire."
'Bam,' the boy, mumbles his agreement. His head is full of sand, and his heart is someplace else. There is a weapon in his bones, an ache in his guts. He moves to the side and throws up black sand and grey seawater.
He heaves until he cries, but his head is clear after.
"Sorry, Herissmon," he manages, straightening correctly now. "What is it?"
"You need to get from the sand and start a fire," she says in a patient voice. "You're shivering, and you need to get out of your wet clothes."
"Herissmon, I don't have any more clothes."
"I kept your sheet!" She tells him this like it's okay. It's not OK; Bam hates the sheet. Herissmon knows he hates it, but he understands. Freezing will not help him. He cannot find Rachel if he has frostbite or hypothermia. He cannot help Rachel if he's dead. Even repeating these words is not enough to make him stop hating the sheet.
He makes a face to himself but blurs it away and goes to limp up the sand. His body aches, and the device in his fingers vibrates, a weapon deep in sleep again. He remembers a woman's smile. He remembers her looking at him and warning him of something, something great and terrible.
But it doesn't stick now. What Bam does hold onto is that he needs to get warm. So he keeps crawling and, with hope, he'll be somewhere warm soon enough.
His chest hurts for some reason. He ignores it.
The digital world is not kind.
Khun isn't stupid. There's no such thing as a kind escapist world. But this is close. The digital world is the closest he can or will get. That doesn't make it a good world. That doesn't make it a kind world.
It is a world he can keep Kudamon out of his digivice to do shit, and it is a world where exploration is preferred, encouraged, allowed. The rules say you need a team; the rules don't say how to get it.
Khun loves a good loophole.
Most people gain their partners through missions, unfortunate team-ups due to an algorithm. Some do it through team-ups in tournaments via supervisor nepotism. A lot of people do it by just surviving in the digital world together.
Very few remember you can find your partners in the digital world first. They prefer the real world, the safe meetings where if your digimon attacks a human, it's not the law of the jungle, it's the rules of the land, and you get arrested and your partner dead forever.
Much too safe, in his opinion.
Besides, as useful as being a Khun is, isolated son and all, it's not beneficial in a place full of them. He won't be lucky enough to find someone who doesn't know who a Khun is, but he might be lucky enough to find someone who doesn't know him personally, who didn't get a video of the falling star. Of the dead girl.
He knows he won't get that lucky. He knows.
He reaches the nearest Net Beach, suffering the sweet sea smell as he arrives. He brushes his hands on the nearest trees. There are a few voices, but no wild monsters, so likely at least one tamer is nearby. He lets Kudamon out of the digivice, who grunts.
"Sup." greets the little pipe fox, leaping to his shoulders. "You took too long."
"I had to get off the beaten path," Khun replies, reaching to scratch his partner on the head to placate the unbearable litany of complaints he knew would come. "Everyone's heading into the Tower to sign up for exams today because they think they're slick. They want to form teams there."
"And you want the most feral bastards on your team imaginable." Kudamon hmphs. "You just want to be slick."
"If you don't like it, find someone else."
Kudamon smacks his neck with his tail. "You've probably already made a few alliances without me anyway."
Khun hums and doesn't answer, looking instead for whoever's on the beach. They can't be far if he can hear them. They can't be helpful. He has supplies, survival items. He has plenty to offer.
He breathes out, mostly for his own sake.
Then Kudamon hits him with his tail. "Move, scrub."
Khun flicks his earring before moving on.
It doesn't take him long to find the stranger because there's a scream. He's tempted not to run, but he has to wonder what kind of weakling struggles with the monsters of Net Beach.
As it turns out, it's not a weakling of the wild monsters. It's an immensely tall Tamer with dark skin, red eyes, and an outpouring of Soul.
Khun resists the urge to roll his eyes. Of course, it's the gator man, the only one amazing enough to be blessed with the ability to fuse with his Digimon and stupid enough not to be able to defuse from him. The man is grinning, with all sharp teeth and feral eyes.
Rak Wraithraiser is one of the few solo tamers around. He doesn't want partners, doesn't need them, and is fused with his digimon for good anyway, so it doesn't really matter how good he is. He's too volatile.
Fusion, biomerging, matrix evolving, and so on were too dangerous for most tamers. Yes, bonding with your digimon was cute and a sign of ultimate friendship, but it had its downsides. More vulnerability in battle, stronger senses that led to overload and physical and mental damage, a potential gradual erosion between human and partner, and, as in Rak's case, the permanent fusion of the two.
Rak had been a redhead when Khun had first met him, but he used to have blond hair if he went by the gossip. Or brown. Khun would honestly pay to see a blond Rak Wraithraiser.
He is towering, quite literally, over a guy who looks like he dragged himself from the ocean. Clutching what is hopefully his digivice, tight in his hands, hair dripping, golden eyes drawn with tension. A porcupine monster stands on its hind legs as if prepared to spear Rak through with all it has.
Gotta admire the moxie in a partner.
Kudamon flicks his tail at Khun's ear. "A Herissmon. Those haven't appeared in a while."
"And how would you know?" Khun teases, scratching behind his head with a finger. "You aren't old."
Kudamon harrumphs. "I know what I smell. That's a Herissmon. Something must be wrong in the world. They're not common anymore for a reason. They're susceptible to external data interference due to being so curious all of the time. They rarely evolve in the wild to forms that settle down and are often savages as a result."
"Hmm." Khun cannot help the smile that overtakes his face. "Interesting. Let's take a look."
Kudamon lets out a sigh. "Only you, Aguero, only you."
A/N: It lives! Digimon au LIVES! Haha enjoy~