Title: A Different Sort of Lesson
Chapters: 1-1||Words: 2,125
Characters: Miyako, Hawkmon, Digimon Kaiser
Genre: Drama||Rated: PG
Prompts: Miyako Week 2022, day #6, breaking boundaries
Notes: Set in World of Wings, during the second season. Miyako is one of those with wings.
Summary: Miyako wants to get a start on flying, but she's having problems with a standing takeoff. Perhaps the Digital World will serve her better? But there's that little issue of the Kaiser...
Miyako beat her wings as hard as she could, straining for that moment when her feet would leave the ground. Dust blew up all around her, as well as small pieces of paper and a few other odds and ends. What didn't rise up was her.
Finally she stopped flapping and slumped down against the nearest wall. Poromon flipped a bit closer to her, and she tried to avoid being envious. Her wings were a lot larger than his, and yet he could fly and she couldn't? Granted, he was a Digimon and she wasn't; she was just a Flyer.
"You have beautiful wings, Miyako-san," Poromon told her. "We're going to fly together one day, aren't we?"
"Sure are," she reassured him, lifting him up to rest in her lap. "I'm supposed to be old enough to fly already. They're just not working right now."
Everyone knew that Flyers had to work to be able to take off. She'd never taken one of the flying classes, mostly because she was pretty sure she could work it out for herself. How hard could flying really be? Daisuke could do it! If Daisuke could do it, then anyone could, really.
Her wings ached right now, and she thought about asking one of her siblings to check that she hadn't strained them too much. Then she decided not to. Any of them – Mantarou, Momoe, or Chizuru – would be more than likely to lecture her on taking proper classes and going about things the proper way, like Chizuru had. Well, Chizuru wasn't her, and she wasn't her sister, and she'd do things her own way, no matter what.
Maybe I should try flying in the Digital World? She had to stick to alleyways and back yards here, since she wasn't old enough to legally fly without supervision. But in the Digital World, those rules didn't exist.
She gathered herself up and stood, settling Poromon on her shoulder. "You ready for a trip to the Digital World?"
"Miyako-san?" Poromon peered around to get a look at her. "What do you want to go there for?"
She grinned, mischief lighting her eyes. She knew she'd probably get in trouble with someone about this, but that didn't matter. Not when she had a chance to fly. "Because I think I can get in the air there."
"It's dangerous! Especially if you're going alone!" Poromon insisted. "At least tell the others that you're going."
Miyako shook her head. "I can find an area where the Kaiser's not going to notice." It wouldn't be that hard to hide from him. Just find an area that he wasn't in and that had some hills or even low mountains where she could get some good height. If she couldn't do a standing takeoff, then maybe if she tried it from somewhere higher up she'd be able to? No harm in trying.
It didn't take too long to get to school and sneak her way to the computer room. They'd already done a lot of Dark Tower smashing earlier, and everyone else had gone home. Miyako was pretty sure she could get in and out without too much trouble.
Holding her wings close to her, she opened the gate and transferred herself and Poromon to the Digital World. Hawkmon flicked out his own wings once they were there and looked around.
"This looks like a good place," he observed. Miyako nodded.
"I checked, there aren't any of the Towers around for at least four regions, and probably none of the Kaiser's slaves, either. So I can get this done." She spread her wings out and flipped them a little. She still couldn't get a standing takeoff here but there was a range of cliffs not that far off and there the two of them started off.
Miyako knew she was a little flighty, but she wasn't stupid. She kept her D-3 and Hawkmon close to her, ready to evolve him at a moment's notice if she saw red eyes, the flick of a cape, or a shadow moving in some way that it shouldn't. But the longer they walked, the more she began to relax, and the anticipate of potential flight grew stronger and stronger, until by the time they were at the edge of the cliff, she stared out over the land below with a quickly beating heart.
"Miyako-san," Hawkmon said as he observed her staring, hands clenching and unclenching rapidly. "I think you should evolve me to Holsmon before you get started."
She blinked, staring over at him. "Why? Is everything all right?"
"Yes, it is. But if anything happens, I want to be able to get to you before you hurt yourself." Hawkmon stared at her intently. Miyako opened her mouth to tell him she'd be fine, before she looked out at the rocky plain spread out before her.
If I can't fly – that's going to hurt a lot. It wouldn't be the first time she fell, and she was pretty good at flapping her wings enough so she didn't hurt too much when she hit the ground. It wasn't that she liked falling, but if there were another option – well, she pulled out her D-3 and quickly evolved Hawkmon to Holsmon. He settled near her and watched with sharp eyes as she got to the edge of the cliff and spread her wings wide.
She'd done this before so many times, though never from this high up. The wind brushed on the underside of her wings and ruffled through her hair and her feathers. She took a long breath, and did what she always did – she didn't let herself think about it. Thinking about it would just slow her down.
Now, with a quick breath, she jumped, spreading her wings to catch the wind. Her heart remained in her throat as she fell, beating her wings as hard as she could as the wind cupped them, her hair whipping around her, and a trill of joy caroling out of her throat as she began to rise upwards.
She was flying. Her wings carried her higher and higher and she spun a little, giggling harder, darting this way and that, slowly figuring out the way of flight. A lot of it just seemed to be pure instinct – that was what she'd always been told, and now she knew they were right. She'd always been a creature of instinct, so this was everything she'd ever wanted.
"Are you enjoying yourself?"
It was a voice she recognized, and not one that she'd wanted to hear. She jerked her head around, wings beating faster, in time to see the Digimon Kaiser staring at her, arms crossed over his chest as he stood on top of one of his enslaved Digimon. He stared at her impassively and Miyako flapped her wings, keeping out of his reach.
"What are you doing here?" She'd gone to so much trouble to make sure that this area was cleared out and he should have been busy at least five areas over!
"Did you think I wouldn't notice one of you pests entering my kingdom?" The Kaiser snorted. He didn't have wings but he'd proven more than once that he was at least as fast as a Flyer. Daisuke had learned that the hard way. It had taken days for him to be able to fly again after that.
"I'm just practicing flying. This isn't even part of your "kingdom"." Miyako refused to believe for a second he even had a kingdom outside of his own mind, but as long as she was there alone, she wanted to stay out of reach. She didn't trust the Kaiser as far as she could throw him.
"The entire Digital World belongs to me, whether there is a Tower there or not." Kaiser's Digimon drifted closer to her and those searing violet eyes pinned her down. Miyako couldn't believe she'd ever thought Ichijouji Ken was nice.
Kaiser snapped his fingers, and all around there rose up a battalion of flying Digimon – AirDramon, DeviDramon, two Karatenmon, and a couple of others that she didn't recognize. All of them had at a minimum an Evil Ring on them, and the higher levels had Evil Spirals. All of them stared at her with bright scarlet eyes. Miyako fluttered back and forth, but there always seemed to be one of them there before she could get too far.
What made it worse was that her wings had started to ache – she'd been up in the air too long. Her breathing came a little heavier, and she knew if she didn't get out of there quick, she'd have a lot more problems than she wanted to deal with.
"Red Sun!" Two lancing beams of light lashed through where they hovered, and Miyako dodged just in the nick of time. She rose up as high as she could, trying to stay out of the Kaiser's way, and wasn't happy to see his AirDramon rising to keep pace with her.
But she also could see Holsmon darting into the fray with a Tempest Wing, scattering the battalion around her, following it up with a quick Mach Impulse that slammed into the Evil Rings being used on one of the other AirDramon. Miyako spied an area of clear air and pushed herself towards it, gulping air as hard as she could, wings and shoulders trembling with every movement she took.
"You're never going to learn to stay out of my kingdom, are you?" Kaiser demanded. "What do I have to do to get rid of all of you?"
Miyako spun back around, feeling much better as Holsmon turned to hover next to her. She processed her chances quickly – she could send a quick message to the others, if she had time to type it, but she doubted that she'd have that time. So it was just her and Holsmon, and that meant they were outnumbered for now.
"You don't have a kingdom," Miyako shot back. He was already angry – he lived in a constant state of anger – so what did holding back matter anymore? "You're a little brat stomping his feet all the time. Don't you ever get tired of that?"
In the same second she uttered the last word, she dropped out of the sky as fast as she could, Holsmon following her. She would have preferred fighting to the end, but that fact of outnumbered still remained clear in her mind. Plus, even if they couldn't get here fast enough to help her beat them all, the others deeded to know about the Kaiser maybe setting up shop in this area.
She hadn't dropped down just for the fun of it, though, or even to get out of the Kaiser's sight. Down there, tucked behind a fold of the hills that turned into the cliffs she'd taken off from, was the television portal they'd come through. Miyako vividly remembered one of their first trips to the Digital World, where Hikari had been trapped when the Kaiser's slaves blew up the portal before she could get through it. Better to get through before anything could happen.
From up above there came a roar of rage, and orders being snapped out. She couldn't tell exactly what he said but she could guess the intent of it – for everyone left to get down there and get her. Nope. Not going to happen. There was the portal, and she could hear the sounds of the Digimon coming after her. She and Holsmon – who turned back to Hawkmon as they raced – headed right for the portal, her D-3 held out as they flew.
In between one breath and the next, they crossed back over, and Miyako collapsed on the computer room floor, breathing hard, trembling. She raised her head and tilted back one wing in time to see the Kaiser striding up to the portal. For a second, she thought that he'd cross right through. Instead, his boot slammed down hard on the portal, and the screen went dark.
Something about that released the knot of tension inside of her and she sagged back down, fighting to get her breath back, her wings trembling and her entire body aching.
"Miyako-san?" Poromon nuzzled against her. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," she murmured, raising one hand to brush against him. "I'm fine." She knew there was a lot she needed to do, but she wanted to rest first, which would probably include getting up first. She'd do that – later. When her body didn't ache as much.
And when the thought of how she'd flown, for those few minutes, with the wind in her hair and in her wings, and the world spread out before her, faded just a little.
The End
Notes: Kaiser wasn't interested in keeping Miyako. Now if it had been Daisuke, that would be different.