Chapter 8
Several days had passed since Meicoomon had joined Wolf and Revemon, turning the pair into a trio. Meicoomon had yet to really become a part of their little group, but she had not left, and stayed in close proximity to the two guys the whole time. Wolf and Revemon had both shown her patience, being careful to never move too quickly when approaching her, not wanting to scare her. In their minds, the two thought that Meicoomon could be starting to like them. She was still keeping her distance, but she was no longer hiding when she followed them and she was a little less skittish when they gave her a share of the fish to eat. She had even followed them when they had made their final trip to Andromon's factory for the last of their supplies and a few proper tools for building.
"Okay you two." Wolf said, gaining the digimon's attention. "With that last trip we've got everything we need for the house, so now starts the long, harder part; actually building it. It's not gonna be easy. I mean, my knowledge on this stuff is only theoretical, but I've studied how to do it thoroughly, so there will be some trial and error, but it shouldn't be too bad. Meicoomon, we're not your partners and you don't really have to be here with us, so I'll understand if you choose to leave now, or to just not help us build it."
Meicoomon's face scrunched in an expression which conveyed she was thinking about it. She unconsciously shifted lightly from foot to foot, looking down at the ground, clearly uncomfortable with being put on the spot. Wolf hoped she would choose to stay. The little cat digimon actually reminded him a little of himself, even though he had never been as needing of company as she seemed to be. No, when it had happened to him, Wolf's mind had quickly reached the decision that he didn't want to be around people more than could be helped, set to work on figuring out how to achieve that, and grew to prefer solitude. Of course, his growing annoyance with all the things he observed people not noticing or not doing that he took to be blatantly obvious only served to help him prefer being alone. He wanted to help Meicoomon because despite being a digimon, she almost seemed like a weaker version of himself as a child.
After nearly a full minute of silence, Meicoomon lifted her head and made eye contact with Wolf.
"I, uh... I guess I could help out. If... if you want me to." She said.
She said it with trepidation, both wanting and fearful. She said it so quietly, as if to speak any louder would surely mean rejection. Wolf and Revemon shared a glance with each other, and then both smiled benevolently at her.
"We're glad to have you." Revemon said congenially.
"Just hope you don't get sick of us too quickly." Wolf said jokingly.
Meicoomon hesitated a moment before responding, "I... I don't think I will. You're, you're nice."
Then, for only the second time since they had met her, Meicoomon gave a small smile. The two guys responded with smiles of their own. Wolf reached out to give her fur a reassuring stroke. He both was and was not surprised when she cowered away from his hand. She didn't move any further away from them, but just slunk back a little bit. Wolf thought it was still a little progress made as he gently drew his hand back. He stood up, and looked about at all of their building supplies.
Wolf exhaled sharply. "This is gonna take a while."
OOO
Revemon and Wolf groaned together in pain as they lowered their aching bodies into the cold water of Dragon Eye Lake. There was no splashing and playing for them that night. They just wanted to numb their shouting muscles. Meicoomon was just as sore, but having a cat's distaste for getting wet, she was lying prone on the sand not far away.
"Well, we finally got that done. And it only took two weeks longer than I thought it would." Revemon groaned out quietly.
"I really didn't think the foundation would be that hard to build." Wolf said.
A long sigh then escaped his mouth as he felt some of the pain just start to ebb away. They had spent the last month working on laying the foundation for the floor. Because they didn't have the materials needed to create cement, which was the typical kind of foundation, they'd been forced to employ a more complicated procedure. Between Revemon's and Meicoomon's attacks, they would break off pieces of the boulder they had brought from the Great Canyon, sand their sides to level, and then use the Yokomon's resin to apply them to the site, creating a kind of cobblestone foundation. It had been a long, tedious process and they had messed it up several times, twice having to pry up all the stones they had already laid and start over from the beginning. They had gotten close to using so much stone and resin that Wolf had almost been worried they wouldn't have enough left to build the chimney.
"Meicoomon, you still with us?" Revemon asked loudly enough to be heard without turning his head.
By way of an answer, Meicoomon gave a distinctly feline yawn, and nothing else.
"I think we can probably take that for a 'yes.'" Wolf said.
"Ugh! Everything hurts." Revemon commented. "Is the rest of the project gonna be like that?"
"I don't know, pal. Probably."
OOO
Two weeks later, they had completed a fully stable frame for the house, and were a quarter of the way through one of the outer walls. Wolf used his stone knife to carve a notch into a designated point on one of their felled trees. The tree had already been stripped down into a smoother, proper log.
"Alright, Meicoomon, you're up." He said.
Meicoomon smiled. She took a step backwards, ran forward several and jumped into the air.
"X Scratch!"
Her attack landed, and a clean cut split the log at the spot Wolf had indicated.
"Shradomon, your turn."
Shradomon wrapped his long tail around the middle of the log, lifting it up. He placed it gently on top of its predecessor, uncoiled his tail, and held the log there while Meicoomon and Wolf used the tools to secure it in place. Having finished, the two below lowered themselves on their ladders back to the ground, and the champion level digimon above released his grip.
"Good job, Meicoomon." Wolf said.
The little cat digimon gave a small, bashful kind of smile at the compliment. Beside them, Shradomon landed and the three of them looked at their progress with satisfaction.
OOO
Another three weeks of work later, and the house was almost completed. They had finished all four exterior walls, the roof, and a deck to look out onto the lake. They had even made rough windows for the house by blocking off sections of the beach with rocks and using Shradomon's Black Blazer to heat the sand until it crystallized into glass. The windows were not entirely transparent, and neither were their surfaces smooth, but they did the job. The house ended up being a one story tall, one room cabin with a space of a thousand square feet.
The last thing they had to do, which they were halfway through, was building the chimney and fireplace. Revemon were then eight feet up, laying a stone on the chimney in the way as they had assembled the foundation. After attaching the side with resin on it, Revemon slid down for the next of them to take their turn. On the ground, Wolf was slathering a wad of resin onto the next stone.
"If we keep this rate up, we'll finally have the thing done by tonight!" Revemon said with pride.
"It's just how I wanted it. A place to live with serene, gorgeous surroundings, and not another human anywhere. This is even better than what I originally had planned." Wolf said.
Spreading the resin, Wolf then accidentally flicked some of it onto Revemon's face.
"Oops, sorry Revemon."
Revemon wiped the speck off of his face, then reached out and pulled a small blob from the container.
"Hey. Don't even think about it, pal." Wolf said through a grin.
Revemon grinned back devilishly and tossed it. The gray blob hit Wolf on the bottom of his cheek. Wolf smiled with both pleasure and mock fury as he took out a handful of his own.
"You are dead!"
He threw it, but Revemon dodged it easily. This started a playful fight of the two of them going back and forth to the container, taking some, and trying to pelt the other while dodging at the same time. Wolf landed a hit on the back of Revemon's head, while Revemon nailed Wolf right in the middle of his shirt.
Meicoomon turned one of the corners of the house carrying a load of firewood with her. After only a couple steps, a moderate speck of resin from the play fight landed on her head above her eyes. The bonding agent almost instantly matted and clotted in her fur.
"Ick!" Meicoomon whined as she felt it coagulate. "What are you guys doing?!"
She was getting ready to get mad at them, but when she saw the smiles on their faces, and heard their laughter, her mounting anger transformed itself into amusement. Even still, she ducked back behind the corner when another wad came close to her. She didn't want any more of it sticking to her fur. She watched the fight continue. At one point, Revemon bounced off of the pile of stones, causing one to break off and go flying into the lake.
The match continued until, while backing up to throw, Wolf felt himself collide into something hard and hairy. Looking up, he saw the head and face of a lion staring back down at him.
"Hello." The digimon said.
Wolf jumped away from the other, spinning to have the digimon in his sights, in case there was a fight coming. He saw that the digimon in question was an anthropomorphic lion standing eight feet tall. It wore black trousers that stopped just above its ankles, a long band of leather wrapped around its right hand and forearm and had no shirt. Its head was wreathed in a mane of long, bright yellow fur that concealed everything except its face and the ears protruding outward. Wolf could see the handle of a sword extending outward from a sheath horizontally fixed on the back of its waist. Before Wolf could do anything, Revemon ran up beside him.
"Leomon!" His partner declared with happy enthusiasm.
"Revemon, you know this digimon?" Wolf asked.
"Of course I know him! Everyone on the island knows Leomon. He protects any digimon he finds getting attacked or picked on by evil or mean ones stronger than them. All the bad digimon hate him."
Wolf looked from his partner to Leomon.
"I give you my word that I mean you no harm." Leomon said.
Seeing the sincerity in the eyes of the tall lion, Wolf relaxed.
"Okay. I trust Revemon, so I'll believe you. Nice to meet you, Leomon. My name's Wolf Wilson."
"It's good to meet you as well"
"So, Leomon, what are you doing here?" Revemon asked.
"Word finally reached me on Infinity Mountain that we had a digidestined on the island. When I was told it was only one, my curiosity was peaked, so I decided to come meet you."
"Why should there only being one of me interest you?" Wolf asked.
"There is a very old legend that says at a time of great darkness, a group of children would come to the Digital World and save us all. These children are the digidestined, and have the ability to digivolve their partner digimon. I was intrigued upon hearing about you for two reasons. One because while their have been some strange occurrences on the island lately, some digimon needlessly frenzied or incensed for no apparent reason, there has been nothing I could say has been overtly significant. The other was that while the legend does not specify how many children there will be, it does make it clear that there will be a group of them, not one lone boy." Leomon said.
"Thank the universe for small miracles." Wolf thought to himself. Out loud he said, "I don't know what to tell you. I haven't seen anything like an emergency myself. Revemon, how about you?"
"Well, there were the Flymon attacking us for no reason at the Yokomon village. And there was that one weird looking digimon, but that could have just been one I haven't seen before. I don't know every digimon, after all."
"It's all a little suspicious, but so far, I don't think it adds up to anything sinister. Still, if anything happens that's bigger in nature, I'll be sure to let you know about it." Wolf offered.
"That would be fine. Thank you." Leomon said.
The tall lion then lifted his head to look at the newly constructed house.
"This is quite a dwelling you're making. Can I ask why you're building it?"
"To live in. Me, Revemon, and Meicoomon, if she decides to stay." Wolf answered.
"Then, you're planning on staying here for a long time? I would have thought you would be eager to get back to your own world." Leomon said.
"I think he's not like most humans. He likes it a lot better here." Revemon said.
"You mentioned a third digimon. Do you have a second partner?"
"She's not really my partner, but she-" Wolf stopped talking as he started to look around himself.
He had just taken note that Meicoomon wasn't standing there with them. He had noticed when she had returned with the firewood, but had been so into the fight with Revemon that he hadn't spoken to her. She still wasn't entirely comfortable around them yet, but over the weeks of construction, Wolf had felt that they had all started to grow closer and enjoy each other's company. If nothing else, she hadn't run away, and that had to mean something. Wolf half turned back towards the house, scanning around. Behind a distant corner on the left, he spotted a bit of orange and saw that Meicoomon was watching all of them while half hidden. From what he could see of her, he could make out that her ears were down and pressed against her head.
"Hey, Leomon, just wait here for a minute, will you?" Wolf asked.
"Certainly."
Wolf and Revemon walked over to Meicoomon, stopping four feet away from her. Wolf knelt on one knee in front of her. Up close, he could see in her eyes and body language that she was nearly paralyzed with fright.
"Meicoomon, are you okay?" Revemon asked with some concern.
"That... that digimon. He was with the humans who hurt me. He's friends with them. He tried to hurt me, so I..." She trailed off, biting her tongue.
Wolf thought that whatever memories had been summoned either had to be too traumatic for her to spell them out, or she didn't want to say them for fear of judgment for something. Either way, Wolf didn't care. All he cared about was that she was upset, and he didn't like that.
"Do you want him to go away? I'll make him if you do." He said.
Meicoomon's eyes widened with awe and she then emphatically shook her head affirmatively.
"Alright, no problem."
Wolf and Revemon both stood up and returned to Leomon.
"Hey, Leomon, would you maybe mind leaving for a while? It's just that our friend over there is kinda skittish around new digimon and she's a little scared right now." Revemon said, trying to appeal to Leomon's compassionate nature.
"Oh, of course. I wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. I'll leave now." Leomon said.
He turned to leave.
"Wait, hold on a minute." Wolf said.
Leomon turned back and both he and Revemon looked at Wolf with questioning glances.
"Leomon, I don't know how it works for digimon, but we humans generally prefer to sleep on some kind of support. Do you know where we could possibly find things like blankets and bed sheets here on the island? If we had those, I could use them to make hanging beds called 'hammocks.'" Wolf said.
"Hmm." Leomon touched his chin in thought. "The only place I can think of where you might find things like that would be Devimon's mansion, on top of Mount Infinity. But I'd strongly advise you to not go there."
"Is that really it?" Revemon asked, his voice suddenly filled with apprehension.
"Why? What is this place and what's a 'Devimon?'" Wolf asked.
"The mansion is a ruin, said to have once been home to beings from another world who grew to love this one. That area is the domain of Devimon, an evil, champion level digimon whose malice is matched only by his ambition. Luckily, he's yet to gain sufficient power that he cannot be stopped." Leomon explained.
"So one champion level digimon. We've already dealt with worse than that, haven't we Revemon?"
"Yeah, a whole bunch of Flymon at once." Revemon said, regaining a little confidence.
"Not like Devimon. It's said that only the entire group of digidestined could possibly defeat him." Leomon said.
Accessing the files of his memories, Wolf went over the stories he had read online from that Izzy kid, who had said he was a digidestined. Something wasn't quite adding up. Wolf could distinctly remember reading that in one of their first adventures when first coming to the Digital World, that group had fought and killed a digimon called Devimon. But, if they had done that, how could this Devimon be haunting Infinity Mountain now? The stories had alluded to some kind of big change that happened to Digital World about a year back, but the Izzy kid had said in them that he wasn't allowed to elaborate on those for reasons of Japanese national security. Whatever it was going on, Wolf didn't think it would really be such a risk. They had a fought a number of champion level digimon already, Wolf had thought his way around Cyclonemon, and even he himself could apparently digivolve now. Besides, whatever that Izzy kid hadn't been able to say had happened to the Digital World, Wolf doubted it could have brought the dead back.
"Thank you for the concern, really, but I think we'll be fine." Wolf said.
Leomon sighed. "Very well. I'll take my leave now, but before I go, please, do not needlessly endanger yourself. I do not know why you are here, but the legends say that digidestined are only present in times of great need. Your presence here must have a reason behind it."
With that, he turned back again, and walked away. It was three full minutes after Leomon had disappeared among the trees that Meicoomon finally came out of hiding, moving over to Wolf and Revemon.
"You made him leave." The little cat digimon said. "Thank you."
"Of course, you're our friend after all." Revemon said.
"Considering you first is kinda part of that job description." Wolf added.
In response, Meicoomon gave them both a smile wider than the restrained smirks which had been the most she could muster since they had met. It was not a full, entirely developed smile, but it was laced with gratitude, satisfaction, and more than just a little happiness.
OOO
The next day, the three of them were hiking up the cold slopes of Mount Infinity. Wolf had not made a unilateral decision to take the risk of this venture. They had discussed it together that night and decided the danger was really minimal and that if they did get into a fight, they would be okay. They had first flown up on Shradomon's back to cut down on the travel time.
All three of them knew they had to be reaching high altitudes as they climbed because the temperature kept getting lower and lower. Wolf had zipped up his bomber jacket to try to fight the cold, and Revemon and Meicoomon were both shivering from it, the latter even with her coat of fur.
The cold wasn't their only issue. Something about the air around them was unsettling. It was pressing down on them. Each of them felt like there were things crawling around under their skin. If it wasn't so frigid, Wolf would have described it to himself like a chill running up as his spine, but as things stood, it was more like a tingle at the base of his neck. The feeling was almost like the one he would get sometimes when he was being watched, but a thousand times more disquieting. It was like the very ground they were treading on had been wiped clear of all joy and hope.
Reaching the top of the incline, they crested the summit, and found the ruins of the mansion. The entire structure was open to the elements on all sides. It was so decayed, with such large portions missing that none of the three of them could make out what it might have once looked like. There looked to have been three floors to it, the upper stories even more absent than the sections closer to the ground, and looked to be highly unstable.
"I... I don't like this." Meicoomon said in a small, frightened voice.
"It's okay. I'm not a fan of it myself. We'll just take a quick look around, and if we don't find anything, we'll get the hell out of here." Wolf said, reassuring her.
"I'm with you on that one, partner." Revemon said.
They pushed forward, but slowly. The dread they all felt grew with every step they took closer to the ruined mansion. There wasn't much to see when they reached what had once been the inside. There was nothing to see. No remnants of furniture, dishes, cutlery, linens, nothing. They walked the circuit of the thirty-thousand square foot first floor, but did not find anything. The lack of spoils to claim only seemed to add to the trepidity building within them. When the group had nearly reached the exact spot they had started from, a small breeze whistled through the remaining mounds of walls.
A crash sounded to their rear, making Revemon, Meicoomon and Wolf all jump and yelp in shock and fear. It was like the sound of bones being ground brutally into powder, and the imaginations of all three told them it had to be true. In her startlement, Meicoomon rushed up Wolf's body and clamped herself onto his left shoulder, right up against his head. At the same time, he and Revemon both turned towards the direction of the sound. On the floor a short distance before them were several shards of broken glass directly twenty feet beneath the remains of a window. Both Wolf and Revemon made the correct deduction within a couple seconds, and then both burst out in light, tension releasing laughter.
"Okay, we looked, there's nothing, let's go." Wolf said once the laughing stopped.
They all started to leave. From atop Wolf's shoulder, Meicoomon happened to spot something as they were moving. Even though she wanted to get out of there, they had come a long way, and her two companions had saved her life and been really nice to her ever since. She thought she should at least point it out.
"Hey!" She spoke up. "There's something over there. It looks like there's some kind of break in the floor."
"Really?" Revemon asked.
Meicoomon pointed one of her fore-paws, and the three of them moved in that direction. A little over twenty feet to the left they found what amounted to a horizontal break in the regular boards of the floor and it was slightly dislodged. Wolf bent down and took hold of it with both hands, finding that it was a whole section joined together. Moving it aside, they discovered a staircase descending into a basement and proceeded down.
It was excessively dim in the basement, most of the light coming from the newly open hatch and a few random beams through the boards above. Searching through the space, they found long expired canned food, candle holders, pieces of ancient, rotted furniture, and in one corner to the right of where they had entered the basement, what they had come for. Up above Wolf's head on a shelf were stacks of old blankets and bedding. Several of the stacks were little more than threads left behind, practically disintegrating upon touch, but there were a few left which seemed to have survived the decay and they included thick blankets and high quality cotton sheets.
"I don't believe the luck. This is everything we need." Wolf said.
"After how hard everything else has been on this whole thing, I can believe it. We were due for it." Revemon said.
Wolf pulled down all of the intact sheets and blankets there were and stacked them on the floor.
"There's too much here for me to carry by myself. Both of you will have to take some too." Wolf said.
Both digimon nodded, Meicoomon disembarked Wolf's shoulder, and they then all picked up a bundle. They had been about to set off when something happened that made them all freeze in place. Footsteps sounded on the boards above their heads. With the force of an atomic bomb, the cold, dread fear they had felt on their way up the mountain reasserted itself upon them. All three of them began to tremble from the sudden anxiety. Above them, a voice spoke, seeming to think out loud, and its sound caused what had just been fear to escalate to real terror within Wolf, Meicoomon and Revemon.
"Where is that human? I could have sworn I felt one." It said.
Its footsteps then continued, the sound of the pattern clearly searching.
"Wolf, I don't know how I know this, but I don't think that's a champion level digimon up there." Revemon said in barely a whisper.
"We... we have to get out of here! Whatever that is up there, we can't fight it!" Meicoomon said in a similarly restrained voice.
"I think I agree. We got to find a way out of here before it finds the trapdoor we opened." Wolf said.
He scanned around the basement, looking for any avenue of escape possible. At first, there didn't seem to be any way out, but then he saw something that might be a way.
"Come over here."
They all picked up their blankets and sheets and Wolf led them to a spot on the far wall. Down at the base of the floor, there was a small ray of light filtering in, and they could feel a breeze squeaking through it as well.
"Meicoomon." Wolf said, and gestured with his head to the hole.
The little cat leaned down, closed one eye and pressed the other close to the hole. She came back up quickly.
"Its worn away. I can see to the outside. I think there's a big drop on the other side." She said.
"Okay, we're gonna have to break through. We'll take it as quietly, but also as quickly as we can." Wolf said.
The three of them together all pressed their hands against the hole and pushed. Unfortunately, the wood running into the base of the floor was more brittle than Wolf had predicted, and the slat his hand was on cracked and broke loudly, the sound echoing throughout the room. The three of them all froze with panic. Everything was silent. Meicoomon, Wolf and Revemon were holding their breath in anticipation. They each expected to die. For something to obliterate them at any moment, reducing them to smoldering embers before they could even feel it. Seconds that felt like whole days passed and nothing happened. The three of them gingerly released their collective breaths.
Revemon said, "Maybe it-"
A horrifying, massive claw of a hand ripped away a section of ceiling forty feet to their rear.
"Revemon, the top, Meicoomon, the bottom!" Wolf ordered.
He moved out of their way.
"X-Scratch!"
"Reve-chop attack!"
The wood and foundation stone were reduced nearly to their base elements in size, expanding the hole just large enough for them all to get through. All three of them grabbed the items they had come for and jumped through the hole. Outside, they had a short fall before landing on a steep, thickly mud laden incline of earth. The angle of descent was nearly vertical, allowing them to do nothing but slide down. At one point on the way down, the back of Revemon's head collided with a sharp rock in the side of the cliff. Their descent continued for just short of thirty seconds before they tumbled onto the uneven ground below. They were all caked with the sodden soil.
"Is everyone okay?" Wolf asked.
"I am, but I'm filthy." Meicoomon said.
"I'm a little... groggy... but I think I'm okay." Revemon said.
Before any of them could get up, a new sound of crunching came from overhead and they all looked up to see fresh debris falling towards them.
"It's still coming!" Meicoomon shouted fearfully.
Wolf scanned around, looking for anything. At the base of the incline was a small crevasse in the side of the wall, a depression that could barely fit all of them.
He pointed at the spot. "Over there! Bring the stuff! And use one of them to wipe away our footprints as you come!"
Wolf grabbed his own bundle from where it had fallen and ran over. In front of the depression, he fell to his knees, took one of the lighter colored blankets and began to rub it against the ground. The digimon joined him after only a second.
"Get in there!" He told them.
They did and after only a few more seconds, Wolf had the blanket so coated with mud that it was the exact same color as the ground. He squeezed into the space along with his digimon friends and pulled the blanket over them, allowing the ends to remain loose on the ground to blend better, but also keeping a firm grip on the underside. He didn't have to explain what they were doing to Meicoomon and Revemon, and they all went dead silent.
Their wait was not a long one. The impact tremor of something heavy landing nearby shook them not six seconds later. Whatever it was Revemon had sensed that had told him the thing was no champion level digimon, they could all feel it now. It was like a weight, slowly crushing them. The power radiating from whichever this digimon was was like nothing any of them had ever felt. They all knew deep in their bones that if it found them, they would die.
There was not much light passing through the murky haze of the blanket over top of them, but what little there was then became even dimmer. It was standing just in front of them. Revemon and Meicoomon both hugged themselves firmly into Wolf's body, and he in turn felt himself doing the same to them. He could feel its eyes upon their exact location. He thought he could practically visualize the malevolent, searching face seeking them out, wondering where they could have gone. The shade encompassing grew darker still as they enemy they had not completely seen moved closer towards them. For what seemed like an eternity, it just stood there, hovering above them. Wolf was more on edge than he had ever been in his entire life. Doing nothing had never been his strongest ability. He had accomplished everything he had in his life by acting and acting smartly when others had not. He felt like he could maybe digivolve himself. He had the power to do it. It was only his substantial, calculating intellect that kept him from doing so, telling him that whatever distraction and surprise he might cause by digivolving would likely not be enough to allow his two friends to get away. What he had already done was their best chance.
For what seemed like an eternity, the shadow before them just loomed there. When it started to feel like they had been made, and a last futile attempt at fleeing would be inevitable, the light suddenly brightened. A sound of gusting wind accompanied it, and the oppressive atmosphere of dread departed, telling the three under the blanket that their ruse had worked. Wolf peeled the blanket away from their heads, confirming that the danger was gone.
"Whew!" He exhaled with a sharp whistle. "I don't know what that thing was, but that was a close one."
"No kidding! I thought we were goners!" Revemon laughed out.
"Is it really safe?" Meicoomon asked.
"It is. We pulled that off." Wolf said. "Now let's go home. It's gonna be a long walk back, and I know we don't want to run into whatever that was again."
"I agree. I really agree." Revemon said.
Meicoomon nodded her head, they all picked up their stacks of sheets and blankets again, and set off.
OOO
The next evening, as the sun was setting, Wolf, Revemon and Meicoomon looked over their work. The house was completed. Everything was finished. The inside was void of any furniture, but the walls were sturdy, stable, and the roof was waterproof. It wasn't anything special architecturally, just a basic cabin with four walls and a slanted roof coming to a point. Even so, with where it was and what it represented, Wolf thought it was the most beautiful house he had ever seen.
"You know, I didn't think we'd ever actually get this thing finished." Revemon said.
"I know. Part of me kept expecting to wake up for these past months and find that this was all just a great dream. But, we really did it. Despite all the fights and obstacles, we did it." Wolf said.
"It does look nice." Meicoomon said.
"Yeah?" Wolf asked, looking down at her. "You thinking of sticking around?"
Meicoomon blanched, her face taking on a nervous and shy expression as she looked down at her feet.
"Well, it is a nice house and we put a lot of work into it. You've been really nice to me, I don't know how to get off of this island and find Mei, and even if I could..." Meicoomon trailed off, lost in thought. She did not speak again for several seconds. "I... I like you two, and if you don't mind, then I would like to stay with you."
Her feline face was so filled with apprehension that both Revemon and Wolf could easily tell that was terrified of being rejected at this crucial time. Wolf smiled at her, knelt down and gently stroked the fur on the top of her head. For the first time, Meicoomon did not pull away, but allowed him to continue the action while looking up at him with wondering eyes.
"Of course you can stay. We like you too, and we love having you around. Don't we, Revemon?"
"Yeah. You're not so bad. No worse than him, anyway." Revemon joked.
Meicoomon's face broke into a wide, gasping smile of delight. In a quick burst, just like she had done back at Devimon's mansion, she hopped up onto Wolf's shoulder and gave a light purr of happiness.
"Hey! Don't forget about your real partner!" Revemon exclaimed with a jocular, playful tone.
He jumped onto Wolf's back and held himself up by Wolf's other, free shoulder.
"I could never forget about you, pal. You're the first real friend I've had in years." Wolf said.
They all smiled at each other, basking in the warmth of the friendship they had made. Looking at the house once more, for the first time in eight years, Wolf felt completely at ease. He had everything he wanted, and friends who were weren't human people to share it with.
"Guys, we're home."
OOO
A/N: Hello readers. Been a while, but here's a new chapter to this evolving Digimon story. I hope everyone who reads this enjoys. There will be more coming.
P.S. If anyone's wondering, this story takes place after the events of Digimon Tri.