I don't own digimon.
Butterflies, that is what we all are. We enter the world, growing up from caterpillars into butterflies. We then migrate from home, mate with other butterflies and die once we reach our home. And the cycle repeats itself. -Victoria, DA03
Session 78
Butterfly (Final Version)
The memories of her still hung tightly within Victoria.
She could still clearly that day in her mind, finding herself within a small garden once more. It was here her former master stood in all her glory at the tender age of fifteen. Here amid the lilacs and the roses she and the girl would play all sorts of games, from the simple ones such as chess or checkers to more complicated stuff like battleship or charades.
All without the gaze of Julie or that stupid cloud of darkness to interfere.
Yet, that day was different from the others.
"Victoria, I have to go." a girl explained, her dark red hair seeming to flutter about in the wind. "And this time, I doubt I'll be allowed to see you in the future."
"Why, Chouko?" the blackgatomon inquired as she pawed at the pink and purple ribbons in her master's hair.
"Mom sees you as a corrupting influence towards my growth." Chouko explained and gave Victoria a pat on the head. "If she caught me with you, I don't dare to think what she could do to us."
"I'll have to agree with you there." Victoria answered and managed to keep her mind from attempting to shifted to her human form, giving the girl a hug. "May the next time we meet be under much better circumstances."
"Indeed." the girl answered and pulled out a purple and silver D-3, flashing it at one of those old box TV's. "Until we meet again."
She then stepped into the television, somehow managing to fling the blackgatomon her digivice in the process.
For a time, Victoria was content with just waiting in the villa, awaiting her nameless master's return. The black was never quite sure how long she had exactly waited during that period of life, having not much in the way of memories of that time.
Yet, one particular encounter still hung tightly within, having lit the path that she had walked up to now.
The day had begun like all the others, with Victoria hanging out in the garden while in her blackgatomon form.
"Wakey wakey." a voice had called out, forcing her to gaze about her area in search of this elusive intruder. "You know that you can't go like this forever."
Lightning Paw!
After somehow managing to catch a flash of movement, Victoria slammed her paw into the opponent and managed to knock them back.
"Is that really the best you can do?" the champion digimon taunted as she took her opponent in. If her master had shown her that one batman film, Victoria would compared the humanoid to that one character but with more chains and a weird demon thing attached. But since this was not the case, she probably would have compared it to her human form but evil and stuff. Not that she would have worn this particular outfit, but I suspect you get the point.
"Who are you and why are you here?" Victoria barked as she watched the humanoid get back up, taking a deep breath in the process.
"Technically, I'm you without all the slime or human form." the opponent explained. "As such you can call me, your 'half-sister', LadyDevimon."
"Uh… sounds good?" Victoria answered as she looked over her sister's outfit over. In comparison to the black cat's human form and Chouko, LadyDevimon was quite a bit taller and bustier than the two. Which meant that any clothes that were on hand had to be either modified or had to be stitched together in order to make work. So for now, she would leave her newfound partner's outfit alone for the moment. "So why are you here?"
LadyDevimon took a deep breath and pointed towards where Victoria had been sleeping. There, the D-3 from before casually laid dormant, its master long gone now.
"Something about this place seemed to draw me here." LadyDevimon explained as she looked Victoria over. "Though I guess that means we're partners."
Victoria gave her a confused glance, only to follow it up with a deep breath.
"Fine, we're partners." the black cat finally answered and shifted to her human form, right as LadyDevimon jumped on her.
After that day, things start feel different for Victoria. Once could call it hope or blind faith. Or possibly both.
For the next couple couple 'cycles', their group grew in size in the form of a Sistermon (Noir) and a girl by the name of Deanna Motomiya. But while this happened, Victoria kept her gaze on the goal ahead.
As time marched onwards and change arrived to the digital world, her cockiness seemed to grow. Where before she would just watch and observe, eventually grew to slight interference and from that became full-on intrusion into the story. Half of the time, there was no real big reason for her to even be there. She still came anyway.
Yet, everything was flipped upside down over a decade ago with the successful kidnapping of a digidestined. For the next five years, she personally trained said digidestined in the hopes of helping in their cause. How wrong that turned out to be. To call what happened in a single day to Odiaba all those years ago a disaster would be an understatement yet at the same time, far from the truth. While the boy had only managed to get himself killed at the hands of his own partner, she had found herself a friend in the form of a pink catgirl priestess and her belly dancing cat partner. And while yes, she had to go back to her realm with her overprotective at times mother, it was a connection that led to something greater.
A pair of girls playing by themselves on the sidewalk, oblivious to the end of this particular experiment. Yet, she had noticed them. And of course, she didn't leave such an opportunity unfulfilled and left one of the children something they could use in the future.
But the winds of fortune seemed to change quickly, with the black cat and company subject to a series of heavy losses followed by a time of dormancy. Yet they persevered, with Victoria and her digimon managing to join up with another digimon team and meet Chouko once again. But they had to part just as soon as they reunited.
For a short time after, peace seemed to reign once more. Well, at least until a new group of heroes seemed to rise from out of nowhere. Unlike the previous group, they seemed to have their shit together, somehow. But at the same time, they were even more broken then all the others. They brought with them both a sense of respect and dignity, yet a lack of control and finesse. They were at best five different individuals with five different agendas and each agenda had their own sub agendas to boot. But they somehow managed to pull themselves in line and make it work amid their differences.
"Here it is." Victoria whispered and pushed a curtain aside, she and her team find themselves in a large armory. It was a simple rectangular room with both an exit to the south and one to the east, with some just as uninterested gray walls and white tile floor. Metal shelves lined the walls, with empty boxes left behind. Any sign of an actual weapon were long gone now, with dust being the only sign that there had been something there in the first place. Yet, something about this place seemed… off. While her experience with actual bases belonging to major factions of the digitalverse was quite limited, she was more than well acquainted with this place.
"There you are." a voice announced as Elena and the rest of Delta walked in from the east exit, focusing their attention on Victoria and company. "Did you find anything?"
A smile formed on the black cat's face as she approached the north wall, giving it a knock. A hollow knock sounded back, just loud enough to make her smile grown even bigger.
Moon Inferno!
Victoria then concentrated for a couple seconds and created a violet fireball in her hands. She then slammed it into the wall, watching it shatter a hole large enough for a person to get through. She then passed through as she made a motion for the others to follow.
On the other side, they found themselves in a large hangar-like room. Glass tubes filled with what appeared to be the 'dead' bodies of children and digimon stood along the floor, of what purpose they could still serve remained to be seen. Four corpses laid in front of the tubes, with them propped up to look like they were holding hands for some reason. Of course, the mystery person had left behind a plaque for them to read.
Dimensional Equivalence
"Okay…" Alice whispered as Suiko poked her head out to see the 'sculpture'. "So I guess we know what happened to the other Suiko and I."
The gambler turned her attention to Aaron, who was currently making a note of the art installation and what Alice had said. Once she was sure that the detective had gotten all that he had needed, the gambler and Suiko proceeded to rob their corpses of their guns and ammo. At the very least, they didn't just grab the clothes off the other victims and put them on place of their own.
*Why would we do that?* Suiko inquired as she reloaded her shotgun, making an attempt to discern why exactly the author had made a reference to that. But for she could let it slide.
"Oh my, you've arrived!" a voice added as a cloud of black smoke descended down, forming into the shape of a adult female humanoid. It then took on the skin and clothes of one next, going for a near deathly pale white skin tone that had been covered by a gray cloak. "Let's just get this over with. I'm Despair, the order member running this place. Victoria, just go grab the girl and her friends and never come back."
Neither group gave an answer, seeming quite confused by the cloud's response.
"Why should we trust you?" Kuro accused and pulled her flatbow out, pointing it towards the cloud. "While you don't seem evil and all, we need to take you down in our pursuit for the timekeeper, nya."
After the catgirl priestess had said that, one of those detonators from star wars appeared in Despair's hands.
"One push, and this place goes up in ash and dust." Despair announced
For a few brief seconds, silence filled the room. But, this was followed laughter and giggles.
"Uh… what's so funny?" the 'humanoid' inquired as she watched her audience seem to refuse to take this seriously. "Fine then. You've made your choice."
Despair gave the detonator a soft push and cracked a smile, her gaze focusing intently on her possible opponents. In a matter of seconds, there would be nothing left and for once, it would be Despair's defining moment. Not Devi's, not Julie's, her's.
Yet, nothing happened.
"Is that it?" Victoria inquired as she made a glance towards Despair. "If it is, I'll make this quick."
Despair didn't responded verbally, choosing to let a nod do all her talking for her. She only watched as the black cat reverted back to her blackgatomon form, who decided that charging towards the opponent was the best move.
Lightning Paw!
The black cat then jumped into the air, delivering a punch to their opponent and watched them crumple to the ground. Yet, her attention was not focused on
"Victoria?" a familiar voice called out as the black cat broke into a full-on sprint, allowing her focus to lock-on to the one thing that mattered in this situation. "Is that you?"
"Of course, Chouko." Victoria whispered as a young girl picked her up. She was dressed quite weirdly, having chosen a lavender spaghetti strap tank top with a black skirt and grey pumps. A pair of red bangs hung down towards her waist, which had gotten pink and purple ribbon braided in. Finishing off the look, was a bright blue eyes and a petite mouth with a large smile upon it. "For now and forever."
With that, the two embraced each other in a hug as their teammates watched on. A couple let out an 'aww' but kept it quiet enough to not risk their privates getting cut off.
"Thank you, Delta." Victoria whispered as the members of Delta gave her a confused glance. "I'll take Chouko and her friends with me. Of course, I wish you people the best of luck in your endeavors."
Their gazes refocused on the black cat, who had let go of her partner and had returned to her human form.
"Of course." Elena answered as she and her teammates turned around, finding that Officer EMT had managed to get his armored vehicle up to the hangar area while they looking at the letters. Of course, as they reached the vehicle, the bell rang six times.
"It appears that you have reached the halfway mark." a woman announced and followed it up with a snicker. "But remember, I'm still here. If push came to shove, I'm more than willing to burn this multiverse down just to make sure of it. Good luck!"
They chose to ignore her taunting.
"So to Odiaba then?" Joey inquired as they got inside, pulling his new toy out in the process. "At the very least, we can give the D-3 a try."
Once everyone had gotten themselves seated, the shadow scientist began to fiddle with the digivice. In retrospect, they probably should've waited till they had left Despair Academy before attempting to use a digi-port. But that thought hadn't gone through Joey when he used the device, having already made his choice.
The vehicle was then engulfed in pinkish white light and disappeared from Despair Academy...
Notes:
Damn. It feels so odd to finally see them together after so many near misses and setbacks on their journey. But considering how 'close' we are to the end, a little closure wouldn't hurt.
Possibly the hardest decision was to trying to decide what to title this chapter. However, it was pretty obvious what it should be.
.
Next Time: A family reunion, nearly three years in the making.