Authors note: Oh my gosh I'm so sorry I took so long on this. I've been so busy off and on, or I just haven't been able to work up the motivation to write this.
But I am going to continue this, and I believe (hope) that I've actually gotten better at writing since my last attempt at this fic in particular. So thank you for bearing with me.
Also, one note on the last chapter when it specified 'Impmon's POV', I figure that I will make each chapter in his POV unless I state otherwise for some reason.
It wasn't long before morning came and it was time for Impmon to once again face the human loving digimon and their partners. He complained and grumbled but didn't put up too much of a fight other than that. Any threats of his leaving were empty, as he was too tired and too tempted by the offer of bread to actually go anywhere else.
Besides, those Deva's needed to be taught a lesson after what they had pulled on him, and whether he liked it or not, these kids were his best chance at that.
So he ended up traveling to Guilmon's designated hiding place, stumbling along after Leomon as the other Digimon followed Jeri and leapt from building to building. The virus digimon has rested enough to at least keep up, though the movement proved to be more of a challenge than he had anticipated. A few times, when Leomon stopped to look at something, or Jeri paused to exchange words with another human, Impmon got the idea that they were slowing themselves down for him, and he could barely contain an angry yell for them to stop pitying him, though he knew that would only make it worse.
"We're here." Leomon informed him with a rumble to his voice.
"Thanks fer statin' the obvious." Impmon grumbled, climbing down from one of the nearest and shorter buildings to switch to a low hanging tree limb.
Jeri ran on ahead, yelling in greeting to her friends up ahead. The two digimon followed behind her through the rest of the bushes that hid Guilmon from the public and the rest of the park. Once in sight, Impmon plopped down onto his current tree branch and watched as Leomon walked up behind his partner and nodded to the other partnered creatures.
"Jeri! You made it." Takato smiled, stepping to greet her before he ran a hand through his short hair anxiously.
"Yeah, you made it. But wheres Impmon? I thought you said that jerk-face made it." Terriermon huffed, crossing his arms as he hooked his ear onto Henry's shoulder.
The annoying flea-bag, in Impmon's opinion, was met with his partner murmuring his name in irritation, and with Renamon silently pointing to the tree. He hunkered down lower onto the branch, but it did little to hide the purple devil from the rest of the party.
"Oh, so he really did make it." Terriermon said, blinking. Impmon couldn't tell if he was happy or saddened by this fact, so he decided to be offended regardless.
"What's it to you?" He asked, grumbling as the human children murmured to each other and took occasional looks up at him.
"Well, we thought you'd died for one, and two-" Terriermon was interrupted by Guilmon who smiled at him, though not quite as innocently as he had smiled at Impmon in the past.
"We were worried. We um- Takato-mon says we need to go through there to get our friend."
"Through your stupid play pen?" Impmon asked sarcastically, not quite grasping how that would help them on their search for Calumon, as Jeri had mentioned while he was just waking up.
"Through a portal, more like." Rika stated, frowning up at him. This gave him pause as he finally realized what Jeri had meant when he was half listening earlier.
"Wait, wait, wait... You're actually plannin' on goin' through the Digital world?! Are you crazy?!"
"That's what I said." Terriermon said, and Impmon could agree with the fluffball for once.
"It is where Calumon was taken." Renamon murmured, her statement somehow audible through the morning air and arguing kids who looked at cards in the background. Impmon vaguely recognized them from the play-date he had interrupted before, but he couldn't remember any names for the life of him.
"So do you have anything else to say on it?" Rika challenged, eyeing him. He didn't have anything to say. They knew it was crazy, so he climbed further onto the tree branch and laid back.
The children seemed to take his silence as the answer it was, and turned back to discussing their plans, filling Jeri in on what she had missed. The digimon joined in with what they knew or could remember of the hateful world, and Impmon sighed almost inaudibly as he listened rather than slept like he wanted to.
It came up eventually what they would do with him.
"He doesn't have a tamer... He can't digivolve and-" One of them mumbled, and he couldn't find it in himself to match the name quite yet, instead wallowing in self pity.
Until he heard the next sentence of the argument.
"He may actually have a partner." Renamon said in a monotone, and the conversation stopped.
He could feel the stares on him as he slowly opened his eyes and looked at Renamon. He stood just as slowly, anger pulsing hot in his head, and cold in the tips of his fingers as he contemplated setting fire to the lot of them.
Then he recalled his tamers. His fighting twins.
And he fled.
