Digital Demons II - Part 3
by Nopporn Wongrassamee
Summary: Jade plays therapist while the Tamers take a trip.
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. I'm just too lazy to
look up who they belong to.
"What are you doing here?" Rika demanded.
Jade didn't reply. In fact, she didn't acknowledge Rika's presence
at all. In fact, she just sat there on the floor eith her eyes closed
and hands cupped around another one of those stupid Talismans.
Unable to go back to sleep after Henry's call, Rika had begun to
prowl the ward room restlessly when she discovered the unwanted intruder.
"Hey, wake up," Rika said, reaching down to shake the other girl.
"Please don't do that, Rika," Renamon said, stepping into
visibility.
"What? Why not?" Rika asked, annoyed.
"Jade said that if she dropped the Talisman, she would not be
able to get back in her body," Renamon explained to her partner.
"Huh?" Rika said confused. "What does that mean."
"I don't know," Renamon confessed. "When Jade sat down, she
divided into two Jades. This one has been like this since then.
The other went inside your grandmother."
"Astral projection?" Rika asked, dredging up a half remembered
term from some bogus show about psychics. Maybe that show
hadn't been so bogus after all.
"I believe that was the term she used," Renamon said.
"And you let her do that?" Rika asked disbelievingly.
"Jade said it wasn't dangerous," Renamon explained. "She wants
to help your grandmother."
"Yeah, well I've had enough of her kind of..."
"Miss Nonaka?" said a voice from the doorway.
"Captain Black?" Rika said, identifying the man at the door.
"Sorry to disturb you, ma'am," Black said as he entered the room.
"We've, ah, lost Calumon. We're searching the base for him right
now. Have either of you seen him?"
"I've been asleep," Rika said. "Renamon?"
"I haven't seen him for some time," Renamon said.
"Great, he's wandered off again," Rika muttered. She turned to
Black. "I'm sure he'll come back, Captain. Either that, or we just
follow the sound of explosions if the Invaders or one of these
Demon Sorcerers try to nab him again."
"You'll understand if I'd like to avoid the latter possibility," Black
replied dryly. His gaze shifted to look at something behind Rika.
"Is that Jade? I thought she went home." He stepped around Rika
to get a closer look.
"Well, it looks like she came back," Rika told Captain Black
unnecessarily. "Renamon says she has some hare brained
scheme..."
"Sheep Talisman," Black said, interupting Rika. "First that Yukino
girl and now Jade. Isn't anyone monitoring the security cameras?
The Chans are going to kill me if something happens to Jade."
"Jade said it wasn't dangerous," Renamon said again.
"And you believed that?"
***
"Okay," Jade said to herself. "This is going to be way harder that I
thought."
Jade floated on the edge of a vast cloud of jagged shards. The
shards were presumably pieces of Rika's Grandmother's soul.
Jade couldn't even begin to count the pieces. How could she tell
which pieces fit where?
There was no sense in waiting. Jade reached out and grabbed a
random shard on the cloud's periphery. At the instant of contact,
intense pain flooded into Jade. It stopped the instant Jade let go
of the shard.
Jade suddenly knew what giving birth was like.
"Way, way harder," Jade muttered to herself. How could she put a
soul back together if she could barely touch any pieces?
Studying the cloud, Jade realized the shards appeared to be
revolving around a common center. Staring hard, Jade could
barely make out an open space at the core. There was something
there, but Jade couldn't make out what it was.
Intuitively, Jade realized that to have any hope of success, she
had to reach the center. Looking at the cloud again, Jade thought
that she might be able to maneuver between the shards. But it
would be like Han Solo among asteroids except that collision
wouldn't be nearly so lethal. She hoped.
Resolved, Jade dove into the cloud. Darting this way and that,
she slowly made her way towards the center. Yes! She could do
this. All it took was a little skill and...
A shard brushed against Jade.
Intense sorrow filled Jade. An image of an closed casket at a
funeral popped into Jade's mind. Rika's Grandmother was pulling
a bright yellow ribbon from her hair and placing it on the casket.
There was no meaning associated with the ribbon or memory of
who was in the casket in this shard.
Mentally stunned, Jade lost control and tumbled into another
shard.
No pain here, but Jade was surprised all the same. A teenaged
version of Rika's grandmother was wading through snow toward a
boy her age then and a younger girl. The girl looked absolutely
identical to the one that had appeared in Jade's bedroom.
Reigning in her surprise, Jade barely avoided yet another shard.
The mystery girl could be investigated later. Jade had to
concentrate on the here and now.
Resuming her maneuvers, Jade girded herself against the
onslaught of random feelings and memories from yet more
shards. And she did touch a few.
Here was a memory of shooting some Invaders with a bow and
arrow. There, a happy memory of someone's birthday party. Her
daughter's, Jade thought. None of these shards were as bad as
the first one, thankfully. A good many seemed to feature a
man/boy with a bandage across his nose.
And then Jade was in the clear space of the core. She wasn't
alone. At the center of the core was a little girl of maybe four or
five sitting on nothing. She had a bright yellow ribbon tied in a bow
in her hair and clutched what appeared to be a crudely carved,
wooden dinosaur in her arms.
"Ah, hello?" Jade called tentatively.
The girl turned to Jade. "Hello," she said cheerfully. "I'm Ruriko."
***
"So how did Rika take the news?" Takato asked.
"Better than I thought she would," Henry said somberly. "She
didn't threaten my life or anything?"
"Why would Rika do that?" Guilmon asked.
"Oh, he's just being his usual gloomy self," suggested Terriermon.
They were in Shinjuku Park heading back to Guilmon's hideout.
Takato and Henry led with Guilmon following and Terriermon
riding the other Digimon. They barely even noticed the pointed
looks from other pedestrians, or that alot of those same pedestrians were going out of their way to avoid them.
"Oh, I don't know," Henry said sarcastically ignoring his partner's
comment. "Maybe the fact that I lost her boyfriend to the new bad
guys on the block?"
"Hey, don't worry," Takato said. "We'll go and...oof!" Takato was
interupted when he was almost tackled by a bundle of energy. "Hi,
Jeri."
"Hi, Takato," Jeri replied. She raised her ubiquitous sock puppet
and made it say to the others, "Hi, guys." Since the D-Reaper,
Jeri had modified the puppet, giving it a more lion-like
appearance.
Henry mumbled off a greeting while the two Digimon were more
exuberant.
"What's wrong, Henry?" Jeri asked. "I see you got Terriermon
back."
"Oh, I've lost Ryo," Henry replied. He proceeded to give the girl a
quick rundown on the events surrounding Terriermon's return.
"Oh, that's bad," Jeri said when Henry finished.
"Bad," her puppet echoed.
Takato blinked. He hadn't even seen Jeri's mouth move. "Hey,
you're getting pretty good at that ventriloquism thing," he
complimented.
"Gee, you think so?" Jeri replied, flattered. "It seems to come
more naturally now since...well, since the D-Reaper. It's strange..."
A passing girl bumped into Jeri, interupting her. "Hey! Now that's
just rude..." Jeri began. Then she noticed that the guys and their
Digimon weren't paying attention to her anymore. They were
staring at the girl who had bumped into her.
Takato rushed over to the new girl. "Hey, wait up!" he called to
her.
"Well, isn't that just like a boy," Jeri grumbled. "My stepmom told
me about boys like that, but I never imagined that Takato..."
"We've met that girl before," Henry told to Jeri. "She is...was a
Tamer I think. Her partner sacrificed himself so that we could
Biomerge to fight the D-Reaper."
"Oh!" Jeri exclaimed, instantly sorry. Having lost her own partner,
she could relate.
"Hi, remember me? I'm Takato," Takato said to the girl. "We never
really got to thank you for your help. Heck, we never even got your
name."
"Don't thank me. It was Dobermon who helped you," the girl said
sadly. She didn't even look at Takato. Was she still grieving over
her Digimon? Considering how long Jeri had been in a funk after
Leomon had died, it was certainly a possibility. "And my name's
Alice," she added as she turned away and walked down another
path.
"Okay..." Takato said slowly staring as Alice disappeared around
a bend.
"I don't think she should be alone," Jeri said, walking past Takato
and chasing after Alice.
"Jeri?" Takato called, going after Jeri. "Hey, wait up!"
"C'mon guys," Henry sighed starting after Takato. "The more the
merrier."
"Why is more merrier?" Guilmon asked as he followed the
humans.
"I dunno," Terriermon said from Guilmon's back. "I never noticed
numbers making humans happy or sad before."
At the front of this impromptu parade, Jeri caught up to Alice and
began walking beside her.
"Hi, I'm Jeri," she said, introducing herself. "Listen, I know what
you're going through..."
"I want to be alone," Alice told Jeri in no uncertain tones. Before
Jeri could formulate a reply, a pair of concentric light rings
popped into existance in front of Alice. It floated just off the
ground and was slightly taller than Alice herself. Giving no sign
she even saw the rings, Alice walked right into them.
"Hey, look out!" Jeri cried, grabbing Alice's wrist as she began to
disappear into the rings. Jeri's hand, then arm followed Alice in
and disappeared also. When they did, Jeri felt the rest of herself
being tugged into the circles as well. "Takato!" she cried for help.
"Jeri!" Takato exclaimed in alarm. He grabbed Jeri's trailing arm
and tried to pull her back out in vain. When his hands contacted
the rings, they began drawing him in, too.
"Takato!" Henry cried, wrapping his arms around the other boy's
shoulder in yet another attempt to drag someone back from the
rings.
His effort was wasted. Alarmed from the cries of their humans,
Guilmon and Terriermon came rushing after them to help. The
Digimon collided into Henry sending the whole party sprawling
through the rings. They vanished just as Alice and Jeri did.
An instant later, so did the Gate.
***
"Hi, I'm Jade."
"Hi, Jade," little Ruriko said cheerfully. "Wanna play with me?"
"Um..." An idea occured to Jade. If Ruriko here was the center
Rika's Grandma's identity, maybe Jade could get Ruriko to do
most of the work of putting herself back together. "Yeah, sure, I'll
play," Jade said. "Can you reach those?" Jade indicated the
shards of memory surrounding them.
"Oh, I don't like those," Ruriko demurred. "They hurt."
"They do?" Jade asked. This could be a problem.
"Uh huh," Ruriko said, nodding. She didn't elaborate.
"Why do they hurt?" Jade asked patiently.
"They just do."
Wonderful. Jade wondered how she was going to get Ruriko to
pull herself together if Ruriko wouldn't even touch the bits of
herself floating around. Aside from the sting of failure, Jade didn't
relish giving up and flying back through that mental mine field.
Flying through...
"Okay, I've got a game we could play," Jade said slowly.
"Really?"
"Yeah, I call it 'Dodge'," Jade told Ruriko. She indicated the cloud
of memory shards again. "We'll fly through that, and try to dodge
as many of those...um, shards as we can. You game?"
"I dunno..." Ruriko said doubtfully.
"C'mon, you said you wanted to play a game," Jade goaded.
"Um, okay," Ruriko finally agreed. "But you go first."
"I've already gone first," Jade told her. "It's your turn now."
"It is?" Ruriko's nose crinkled in confusion.
"Yes, it is." Jade replied. "Tell you what. How about I lead and
you try to follow?"
"Okay."
"C'mon then!" Jade shot towards the cloud. She paused at the
edge just long enough to make sure Ruriko was following. The
little girl was. Jade flew back into the shards. After weaving a
complicated path among them, she popped back into the core to
see how the kid was doing.
Ruriko was doing a pretty good job of following Jade's path. She
had to change course here and there as the shards constantly
shifted position relative to each other. Then the inevitable
happened. Ruriko brushed a shard. It was instantly absorbed.
"No!" howled the little girl, suddenly tumbling out of control. "I am
not a runny nosed brat! I'm not!"
It suddenly occured to Jade that if she was doing this wrong, then
Rika's grandmother could wind up even more messed up than
just being in a coma.
Ruriko ran into another shard.
***
"I said I wanted to be alone," Alice told her tag alongs. She almost
sounded stern.
They were on a disc somewhere in the spaces between worlds.
The disc was defined by a pair of concentric light rings similar to
the pair that had brought them here. Takato fervently hoped that
they weren't going to start falling again like the last time they
visited the spaces between worlds. On the other hand, up and
down seemed to be predefined by the disc they stood on.
"We're sorry," Jeri apollogized to Alice. "We're just concerned
about you." She went up to Alice and placed her nonpuppet hand
on the other girl's shoulder. "Listen, I know what you're going
through. I've lost my Digimon partner too..."
As Jeri talked to Alice, Takato motioned Henry aside. They went
to the edge of the disc.
"What is it?" Henry asked.
"This is perfect, Henry," Takato told him. "We can go and rescue
Ryo and Monodramon from here."
"Assuming we can even find them," Henry said pessimistically.
"This place is huge. And then there's the Digital World. You do
remember how we first visited the Digital World?"
"Yeah..." Takato wasn't sure where Henry was going with this.
"Well, I compared notes with everyone after the D-Reaper," Henry
told him. "You wouldn't believe how many times we missed each
other just because nobody stayed in one place."
"I see your point, Henry," Takato said, "but how are we going to
find Ryo if we don't look?"
"Hey!" Jeri called. "A little sympathy for the grieving girl would be
appreciated here!" She turned to Alice. "Boys. They're so
undependable."
Alice just shrugged.
"Hey, we're just worried about Ryo," Takato replied, stung. On the
other hand, if Alice was actually responding to conversation, that
was probably an improvement. "We're just wondering how to go
about finding him."
"Oh, sorry," Jeri said.
"Sorry!" Jeri's puppet echoed.
"I suppose you'll want me to send you guys to him," Alice sighed.
"You can do that?" Takato asked.
Alice nodded. "What does he look like?" she asked tiredly. "I
need to be able to visualize your destination. Or at least someone
or something at your destination."
"Um...I don't have a picture on me," Takato said. He turned to the
others. "Henry? Jeri?"
"Sorry," Henry said.
"Nope," said the puppet.
"I could draw Ryo," suggested Takato. "Well, I could if I had any
drawing materialized.
Sighing again with more exasperation than funk, Alice waved a
hand. Another set of concentric light rings appeared over
Takato's head. Takato looked up in time to see a sketch pad and
box of color pencils fall out of the rings. They hit him square in the
face.
"OW!"
***
Ruriko was back in the middle of the core again. Only she wasn't
a little girl anymore. She now had the appearance of a teenager
a few years older than Jade. The surrounding cloud of memory
shards had shrunk noticeably.
"He gave me this," Ruriko said more to herself than to Jade. She
seemed to mean the little wooden dino in her hands. "It was his
favorite treasure in all the world and he gave it to me."
"That boy?" Jade prompted. "The one with the band aid on his
nose?"
"Yes, him," Ruriko said fondly. "He is... was an idiot. He was
always calling me Rurippe. I hated that name. He was always
charging in without a plan and making thigs up as he went along.
It was so annoying."
In a moment of self-honesty, Jade thought this boy was alot like
herself.
"I loved him, and I can't remember his name," Ruriko said,
troubled. "Why can't I remember his name?"
"Well, Ruriko, there's really only one way I can think of to find
out," Jade said, looking around at the remaining shards.
***
"Mr. Yamaki, we've searched everywhere and we can't find
Calumon," Captain Black said. "I think I can safely say that he's
nowhere inside Section 13."
"Ah, he'll show back up again," Rika interjected.
"I wish I shared your confidence, Rika," Yamaki began. "But..."
"You there! Little girl!" a familiar elderly voice called. Uncle
barged in on them as if he owned the place. Tohru followed,
carrying something in his hand.
"Great, it's the witch doctor," Rika muttered.
"Little girl think she so smart," Uncle replied. He plucked whatever
Tohru was carrying out of the big man's hand shoved it into Rika's
arms. "Here! You handle little white demon."
It was Calumon.
"Nowhere in Section 13, you said?" Yamaki asked Black.
"I'm not a demon, I'm a Digimon!" Calumon argued.
"Hah! You still not fooling Uncle," Uncle retorted.
"Oh, please," Rika said, rolling her eyes. Uncle slapped her
lightly on the back of the head. "Ow!"
"Little girl should learn respect for her elders," Uncle scolded.
"One more thing! Uncle must now go find Jade before she do
something stupid."
"Too late for that," Rika said sullenly.
"Jade's taken the Sheep Talisman and..." Captain Black began
to explain.
That was all Uncle needed to hear. He knew Jade well enough to
figure out the rest. "Aya!" he exclaimed. "The workings of the soul
are not to be tampered with lightly. Is very, very dangerous to do
such things direct."
Renamon materialized next to Rika. "But Jade said it wasn't
dangerous," she protested again.
"And fox spirit believe that?"
Before Renamon could reply, Miles interupted from the monitoring
station. "Sirs! We have a bio-emergence at Golden Gate Park,
and it's freaking huge!"
***
Ruriko watched with tears in her eyes as her husband's casket
was lowered into the ground. Her bright yellow ribbon was tied to
it as a parting farewell gift.
Jade looked around the memory, examining the crowd of friends
who had come to the funeral. Lately, when Ruriko was reliving
memories, the local mindscape changed so that Jade was at the
very least a passive observer.
There was that girl in the kimono again. Jade had since learned
from a passing memory that her name was Yukino. She was a
friend or Ruriko's.
The memory faded, and they were back among the shards again.
More shards were gone. Only a sparse ring remained around
them.
"An accident," Ruriko said mournfully. "Shun died in a stupid little
car accident. He was coming to pick us up when he blew a tire. As
near as we could figure out, he used his powers in surprise and
accelerated to three hundred kilometers per hour. He never did
learn to use that aspect of his power right. He and the car were
found smeared along two hundred meters of freeway."
"I'm sorry," Jade said softly.
Ruriko wasn't listening. "Us. He was coming to pick up us," she
mumbled to herself. "Who was us?"
"You and your daughter?" Jade suggested. Jade had spotted a
little girl with Ruriko in the funeral memory. She thought this was
probably Ruriko's daugher, Rika's mother.
"Yes! My daughter," Ruriko replied. "Her name was... her name..."
Ruriko paused, trying to remember. "What was her name, again?"
Jade sighed and looked at the shards again. She was exhaused
and wasn't sure she could keep this up much longer.
***
The AEGISmobile came to halt about a hundred yards from a wall
of digital fog. The door opened and Rika got out. She looked up.
And up. And up.
"That is the biggest digital field I've ever seen," Rika said in awe.
"What's coming through there? Godzilla?"
"You good to go, Miss Nonaka?" Captain Black asked.
"Call me Rika," Rika replied. "Every time you say 'Miss Nonaka',
I start looking for my mother. Renamon?"
Renamon appeared behind her. "Ready when you are, Rika," the
Digimon said.
"Alright," Captain Black said. "We'll be here if you need us. You
sure you won't need Calumon to, um, digivolve?"
"We're fine," Rika assured him. She spotted movement in the fog.
"Looks like something's coming through. Get ready, Renamon."
An absurdly small figure appeared out of the fog bank. Although
Rika could count the number of times on one hand that she had
seen this Digimon at this particular stage of digivolution, she
recognized him right away. A quick check with her Digivice
confirmed her suspicions.
"Hey, Monodramon!" Rika shouted. "Over here!"
Monodramon turned to look at her. He seemed puzzled.
"It's me Rika!" she shouted some more. "Remember me?"
"Something's wrong here, Rika," Renamon said, echoing Rika's
growing uncertainty.
"Maybe...maybe he's not Ryo's Monodramon?" Rika thought
aloud.
"Perhaps," Renamon said, uncertain.
"How many Monodramon can there be?" Rika asked.
As if in answer another Monodramon appeared beside the first.
Then more began stepping out of the fog until Rika faced a solid
wall of dozens, then hundreds of Monodramon.
"Oh dear," Renamon commented.
The fog lifted, revealing yet more Monodramon. There were
about a thousand of them that Rika could see. Towering over
the Monodramon were the two Digimon Sorcerers that Henry had
described. The green female had a Monodramon in one hand.
The froglike one with the beanie cap had a human being in one of
his hands. A familiar human being.
"Ryo!" Rika called. "What's going on?"
"Rika?" Ryo called back. "Ah, not to worry! Everything's under
control!"
"Indeed," the frog like Digimon commented. "Just not yours."
"Forward!" the green Digimon commanded. "I'm starving!" The
Monodramon began walking forward. They were headed right
towards Rika and company.
"Oh dear," Renamon repeated.
by Nopporn Wongrassamee
Summary: Jade plays therapist while the Tamers take a trip.
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. I'm just too lazy to
look up who they belong to.
"What are you doing here?" Rika demanded.
Jade didn't reply. In fact, she didn't acknowledge Rika's presence
at all. In fact, she just sat there on the floor eith her eyes closed
and hands cupped around another one of those stupid Talismans.
Unable to go back to sleep after Henry's call, Rika had begun to
prowl the ward room restlessly when she discovered the unwanted intruder.
"Hey, wake up," Rika said, reaching down to shake the other girl.
"Please don't do that, Rika," Renamon said, stepping into
visibility.
"What? Why not?" Rika asked, annoyed.
"Jade said that if she dropped the Talisman, she would not be
able to get back in her body," Renamon explained to her partner.
"Huh?" Rika said confused. "What does that mean."
"I don't know," Renamon confessed. "When Jade sat down, she
divided into two Jades. This one has been like this since then.
The other went inside your grandmother."
"Astral projection?" Rika asked, dredging up a half remembered
term from some bogus show about psychics. Maybe that show
hadn't been so bogus after all.
"I believe that was the term she used," Renamon said.
"And you let her do that?" Rika asked disbelievingly.
"Jade said it wasn't dangerous," Renamon explained. "She wants
to help your grandmother."
"Yeah, well I've had enough of her kind of..."
"Miss Nonaka?" said a voice from the doorway.
"Captain Black?" Rika said, identifying the man at the door.
"Sorry to disturb you, ma'am," Black said as he entered the room.
"We've, ah, lost Calumon. We're searching the base for him right
now. Have either of you seen him?"
"I've been asleep," Rika said. "Renamon?"
"I haven't seen him for some time," Renamon said.
"Great, he's wandered off again," Rika muttered. She turned to
Black. "I'm sure he'll come back, Captain. Either that, or we just
follow the sound of explosions if the Invaders or one of these
Demon Sorcerers try to nab him again."
"You'll understand if I'd like to avoid the latter possibility," Black
replied dryly. His gaze shifted to look at something behind Rika.
"Is that Jade? I thought she went home." He stepped around Rika
to get a closer look.
"Well, it looks like she came back," Rika told Captain Black
unnecessarily. "Renamon says she has some hare brained
scheme..."
"Sheep Talisman," Black said, interupting Rika. "First that Yukino
girl and now Jade. Isn't anyone monitoring the security cameras?
The Chans are going to kill me if something happens to Jade."
"Jade said it wasn't dangerous," Renamon said again.
"And you believed that?"
***
"Okay," Jade said to herself. "This is going to be way harder that I
thought."
Jade floated on the edge of a vast cloud of jagged shards. The
shards were presumably pieces of Rika's Grandmother's soul.
Jade couldn't even begin to count the pieces. How could she tell
which pieces fit where?
There was no sense in waiting. Jade reached out and grabbed a
random shard on the cloud's periphery. At the instant of contact,
intense pain flooded into Jade. It stopped the instant Jade let go
of the shard.
Jade suddenly knew what giving birth was like.
"Way, way harder," Jade muttered to herself. How could she put a
soul back together if she could barely touch any pieces?
Studying the cloud, Jade realized the shards appeared to be
revolving around a common center. Staring hard, Jade could
barely make out an open space at the core. There was something
there, but Jade couldn't make out what it was.
Intuitively, Jade realized that to have any hope of success, she
had to reach the center. Looking at the cloud again, Jade thought
that she might be able to maneuver between the shards. But it
would be like Han Solo among asteroids except that collision
wouldn't be nearly so lethal. She hoped.
Resolved, Jade dove into the cloud. Darting this way and that,
she slowly made her way towards the center. Yes! She could do
this. All it took was a little skill and...
A shard brushed against Jade.
Intense sorrow filled Jade. An image of an closed casket at a
funeral popped into Jade's mind. Rika's Grandmother was pulling
a bright yellow ribbon from her hair and placing it on the casket.
There was no meaning associated with the ribbon or memory of
who was in the casket in this shard.
Mentally stunned, Jade lost control and tumbled into another
shard.
No pain here, but Jade was surprised all the same. A teenaged
version of Rika's grandmother was wading through snow toward a
boy her age then and a younger girl. The girl looked absolutely
identical to the one that had appeared in Jade's bedroom.
Reigning in her surprise, Jade barely avoided yet another shard.
The mystery girl could be investigated later. Jade had to
concentrate on the here and now.
Resuming her maneuvers, Jade girded herself against the
onslaught of random feelings and memories from yet more
shards. And she did touch a few.
Here was a memory of shooting some Invaders with a bow and
arrow. There, a happy memory of someone's birthday party. Her
daughter's, Jade thought. None of these shards were as bad as
the first one, thankfully. A good many seemed to feature a
man/boy with a bandage across his nose.
And then Jade was in the clear space of the core. She wasn't
alone. At the center of the core was a little girl of maybe four or
five sitting on nothing. She had a bright yellow ribbon tied in a bow
in her hair and clutched what appeared to be a crudely carved,
wooden dinosaur in her arms.
"Ah, hello?" Jade called tentatively.
The girl turned to Jade. "Hello," she said cheerfully. "I'm Ruriko."
***
"So how did Rika take the news?" Takato asked.
"Better than I thought she would," Henry said somberly. "She
didn't threaten my life or anything?"
"Why would Rika do that?" Guilmon asked.
"Oh, he's just being his usual gloomy self," suggested Terriermon.
They were in Shinjuku Park heading back to Guilmon's hideout.
Takato and Henry led with Guilmon following and Terriermon
riding the other Digimon. They barely even noticed the pointed
looks from other pedestrians, or that alot of those same pedestrians were going out of their way to avoid them.
"Oh, I don't know," Henry said sarcastically ignoring his partner's
comment. "Maybe the fact that I lost her boyfriend to the new bad
guys on the block?"
"Hey, don't worry," Takato said. "We'll go and...oof!" Takato was
interupted when he was almost tackled by a bundle of energy. "Hi,
Jeri."
"Hi, Takato," Jeri replied. She raised her ubiquitous sock puppet
and made it say to the others, "Hi, guys." Since the D-Reaper,
Jeri had modified the puppet, giving it a more lion-like
appearance.
Henry mumbled off a greeting while the two Digimon were more
exuberant.
"What's wrong, Henry?" Jeri asked. "I see you got Terriermon
back."
"Oh, I've lost Ryo," Henry replied. He proceeded to give the girl a
quick rundown on the events surrounding Terriermon's return.
"Oh, that's bad," Jeri said when Henry finished.
"Bad," her puppet echoed.
Takato blinked. He hadn't even seen Jeri's mouth move. "Hey,
you're getting pretty good at that ventriloquism thing," he
complimented.
"Gee, you think so?" Jeri replied, flattered. "It seems to come
more naturally now since...well, since the D-Reaper. It's strange..."
A passing girl bumped into Jeri, interupting her. "Hey! Now that's
just rude..." Jeri began. Then she noticed that the guys and their
Digimon weren't paying attention to her anymore. They were
staring at the girl who had bumped into her.
Takato rushed over to the new girl. "Hey, wait up!" he called to
her.
"Well, isn't that just like a boy," Jeri grumbled. "My stepmom told
me about boys like that, but I never imagined that Takato..."
"We've met that girl before," Henry told to Jeri. "She is...was a
Tamer I think. Her partner sacrificed himself so that we could
Biomerge to fight the D-Reaper."
"Oh!" Jeri exclaimed, instantly sorry. Having lost her own partner,
she could relate.
"Hi, remember me? I'm Takato," Takato said to the girl. "We never
really got to thank you for your help. Heck, we never even got your
name."
"Don't thank me. It was Dobermon who helped you," the girl said
sadly. She didn't even look at Takato. Was she still grieving over
her Digimon? Considering how long Jeri had been in a funk after
Leomon had died, it was certainly a possibility. "And my name's
Alice," she added as she turned away and walked down another
path.
"Okay..." Takato said slowly staring as Alice disappeared around
a bend.
"I don't think she should be alone," Jeri said, walking past Takato
and chasing after Alice.
"Jeri?" Takato called, going after Jeri. "Hey, wait up!"
"C'mon guys," Henry sighed starting after Takato. "The more the
merrier."
"Why is more merrier?" Guilmon asked as he followed the
humans.
"I dunno," Terriermon said from Guilmon's back. "I never noticed
numbers making humans happy or sad before."
At the front of this impromptu parade, Jeri caught up to Alice and
began walking beside her.
"Hi, I'm Jeri," she said, introducing herself. "Listen, I know what
you're going through..."
"I want to be alone," Alice told Jeri in no uncertain tones. Before
Jeri could formulate a reply, a pair of concentric light rings
popped into existance in front of Alice. It floated just off the
ground and was slightly taller than Alice herself. Giving no sign
she even saw the rings, Alice walked right into them.
"Hey, look out!" Jeri cried, grabbing Alice's wrist as she began to
disappear into the rings. Jeri's hand, then arm followed Alice in
and disappeared also. When they did, Jeri felt the rest of herself
being tugged into the circles as well. "Takato!" she cried for help.
"Jeri!" Takato exclaimed in alarm. He grabbed Jeri's trailing arm
and tried to pull her back out in vain. When his hands contacted
the rings, they began drawing him in, too.
"Takato!" Henry cried, wrapping his arms around the other boy's
shoulder in yet another attempt to drag someone back from the
rings.
His effort was wasted. Alarmed from the cries of their humans,
Guilmon and Terriermon came rushing after them to help. The
Digimon collided into Henry sending the whole party sprawling
through the rings. They vanished just as Alice and Jeri did.
An instant later, so did the Gate.
***
"Hi, I'm Jade."
"Hi, Jade," little Ruriko said cheerfully. "Wanna play with me?"
"Um..." An idea occured to Jade. If Ruriko here was the center
Rika's Grandma's identity, maybe Jade could get Ruriko to do
most of the work of putting herself back together. "Yeah, sure, I'll
play," Jade said. "Can you reach those?" Jade indicated the
shards of memory surrounding them.
"Oh, I don't like those," Ruriko demurred. "They hurt."
"They do?" Jade asked. This could be a problem.
"Uh huh," Ruriko said, nodding. She didn't elaborate.
"Why do they hurt?" Jade asked patiently.
"They just do."
Wonderful. Jade wondered how she was going to get Ruriko to
pull herself together if Ruriko wouldn't even touch the bits of
herself floating around. Aside from the sting of failure, Jade didn't
relish giving up and flying back through that mental mine field.
Flying through...
"Okay, I've got a game we could play," Jade said slowly.
"Really?"
"Yeah, I call it 'Dodge'," Jade told Ruriko. She indicated the cloud
of memory shards again. "We'll fly through that, and try to dodge
as many of those...um, shards as we can. You game?"
"I dunno..." Ruriko said doubtfully.
"C'mon, you said you wanted to play a game," Jade goaded.
"Um, okay," Ruriko finally agreed. "But you go first."
"I've already gone first," Jade told her. "It's your turn now."
"It is?" Ruriko's nose crinkled in confusion.
"Yes, it is." Jade replied. "Tell you what. How about I lead and
you try to follow?"
"Okay."
"C'mon then!" Jade shot towards the cloud. She paused at the
edge just long enough to make sure Ruriko was following. The
little girl was. Jade flew back into the shards. After weaving a
complicated path among them, she popped back into the core to
see how the kid was doing.
Ruriko was doing a pretty good job of following Jade's path. She
had to change course here and there as the shards constantly
shifted position relative to each other. Then the inevitable
happened. Ruriko brushed a shard. It was instantly absorbed.
"No!" howled the little girl, suddenly tumbling out of control. "I am
not a runny nosed brat! I'm not!"
It suddenly occured to Jade that if she was doing this wrong, then
Rika's grandmother could wind up even more messed up than
just being in a coma.
Ruriko ran into another shard.
***
"I said I wanted to be alone," Alice told her tag alongs. She almost
sounded stern.
They were on a disc somewhere in the spaces between worlds.
The disc was defined by a pair of concentric light rings similar to
the pair that had brought them here. Takato fervently hoped that
they weren't going to start falling again like the last time they
visited the spaces between worlds. On the other hand, up and
down seemed to be predefined by the disc they stood on.
"We're sorry," Jeri apollogized to Alice. "We're just concerned
about you." She went up to Alice and placed her nonpuppet hand
on the other girl's shoulder. "Listen, I know what you're going
through. I've lost my Digimon partner too..."
As Jeri talked to Alice, Takato motioned Henry aside. They went
to the edge of the disc.
"What is it?" Henry asked.
"This is perfect, Henry," Takato told him. "We can go and rescue
Ryo and Monodramon from here."
"Assuming we can even find them," Henry said pessimistically.
"This place is huge. And then there's the Digital World. You do
remember how we first visited the Digital World?"
"Yeah..." Takato wasn't sure where Henry was going with this.
"Well, I compared notes with everyone after the D-Reaper," Henry
told him. "You wouldn't believe how many times we missed each
other just because nobody stayed in one place."
"I see your point, Henry," Takato said, "but how are we going to
find Ryo if we don't look?"
"Hey!" Jeri called. "A little sympathy for the grieving girl would be
appreciated here!" She turned to Alice. "Boys. They're so
undependable."
Alice just shrugged.
"Hey, we're just worried about Ryo," Takato replied, stung. On the
other hand, if Alice was actually responding to conversation, that
was probably an improvement. "We're just wondering how to go
about finding him."
"Oh, sorry," Jeri said.
"Sorry!" Jeri's puppet echoed.
"I suppose you'll want me to send you guys to him," Alice sighed.
"You can do that?" Takato asked.
Alice nodded. "What does he look like?" she asked tiredly. "I
need to be able to visualize your destination. Or at least someone
or something at your destination."
"Um...I don't have a picture on me," Takato said. He turned to the
others. "Henry? Jeri?"
"Sorry," Henry said.
"Nope," said the puppet.
"I could draw Ryo," suggested Takato. "Well, I could if I had any
drawing materialized.
Sighing again with more exasperation than funk, Alice waved a
hand. Another set of concentric light rings appeared over
Takato's head. Takato looked up in time to see a sketch pad and
box of color pencils fall out of the rings. They hit him square in the
face.
"OW!"
***
Ruriko was back in the middle of the core again. Only she wasn't
a little girl anymore. She now had the appearance of a teenager
a few years older than Jade. The surrounding cloud of memory
shards had shrunk noticeably.
"He gave me this," Ruriko said more to herself than to Jade. She
seemed to mean the little wooden dino in her hands. "It was his
favorite treasure in all the world and he gave it to me."
"That boy?" Jade prompted. "The one with the band aid on his
nose?"
"Yes, him," Ruriko said fondly. "He is... was an idiot. He was
always calling me Rurippe. I hated that name. He was always
charging in without a plan and making thigs up as he went along.
It was so annoying."
In a moment of self-honesty, Jade thought this boy was alot like
herself.
"I loved him, and I can't remember his name," Ruriko said,
troubled. "Why can't I remember his name?"
"Well, Ruriko, there's really only one way I can think of to find
out," Jade said, looking around at the remaining shards.
***
"Mr. Yamaki, we've searched everywhere and we can't find
Calumon," Captain Black said. "I think I can safely say that he's
nowhere inside Section 13."
"Ah, he'll show back up again," Rika interjected.
"I wish I shared your confidence, Rika," Yamaki began. "But..."
"You there! Little girl!" a familiar elderly voice called. Uncle
barged in on them as if he owned the place. Tohru followed,
carrying something in his hand.
"Great, it's the witch doctor," Rika muttered.
"Little girl think she so smart," Uncle replied. He plucked whatever
Tohru was carrying out of the big man's hand shoved it into Rika's
arms. "Here! You handle little white demon."
It was Calumon.
"Nowhere in Section 13, you said?" Yamaki asked Black.
"I'm not a demon, I'm a Digimon!" Calumon argued.
"Hah! You still not fooling Uncle," Uncle retorted.
"Oh, please," Rika said, rolling her eyes. Uncle slapped her
lightly on the back of the head. "Ow!"
"Little girl should learn respect for her elders," Uncle scolded.
"One more thing! Uncle must now go find Jade before she do
something stupid."
"Too late for that," Rika said sullenly.
"Jade's taken the Sheep Talisman and..." Captain Black began
to explain.
That was all Uncle needed to hear. He knew Jade well enough to
figure out the rest. "Aya!" he exclaimed. "The workings of the soul
are not to be tampered with lightly. Is very, very dangerous to do
such things direct."
Renamon materialized next to Rika. "But Jade said it wasn't
dangerous," she protested again.
"And fox spirit believe that?"
Before Renamon could reply, Miles interupted from the monitoring
station. "Sirs! We have a bio-emergence at Golden Gate Park,
and it's freaking huge!"
***
Ruriko watched with tears in her eyes as her husband's casket
was lowered into the ground. Her bright yellow ribbon was tied to
it as a parting farewell gift.
Jade looked around the memory, examining the crowd of friends
who had come to the funeral. Lately, when Ruriko was reliving
memories, the local mindscape changed so that Jade was at the
very least a passive observer.
There was that girl in the kimono again. Jade had since learned
from a passing memory that her name was Yukino. She was a
friend or Ruriko's.
The memory faded, and they were back among the shards again.
More shards were gone. Only a sparse ring remained around
them.
"An accident," Ruriko said mournfully. "Shun died in a stupid little
car accident. He was coming to pick us up when he blew a tire. As
near as we could figure out, he used his powers in surprise and
accelerated to three hundred kilometers per hour. He never did
learn to use that aspect of his power right. He and the car were
found smeared along two hundred meters of freeway."
"I'm sorry," Jade said softly.
Ruriko wasn't listening. "Us. He was coming to pick up us," she
mumbled to herself. "Who was us?"
"You and your daughter?" Jade suggested. Jade had spotted a
little girl with Ruriko in the funeral memory. She thought this was
probably Ruriko's daugher, Rika's mother.
"Yes! My daughter," Ruriko replied. "Her name was... her name..."
Ruriko paused, trying to remember. "What was her name, again?"
Jade sighed and looked at the shards again. She was exhaused
and wasn't sure she could keep this up much longer.
***
The AEGISmobile came to halt about a hundred yards from a wall
of digital fog. The door opened and Rika got out. She looked up.
And up. And up.
"That is the biggest digital field I've ever seen," Rika said in awe.
"What's coming through there? Godzilla?"
"You good to go, Miss Nonaka?" Captain Black asked.
"Call me Rika," Rika replied. "Every time you say 'Miss Nonaka',
I start looking for my mother. Renamon?"
Renamon appeared behind her. "Ready when you are, Rika," the
Digimon said.
"Alright," Captain Black said. "We'll be here if you need us. You
sure you won't need Calumon to, um, digivolve?"
"We're fine," Rika assured him. She spotted movement in the fog.
"Looks like something's coming through. Get ready, Renamon."
An absurdly small figure appeared out of the fog bank. Although
Rika could count the number of times on one hand that she had
seen this Digimon at this particular stage of digivolution, she
recognized him right away. A quick check with her Digivice
confirmed her suspicions.
"Hey, Monodramon!" Rika shouted. "Over here!"
Monodramon turned to look at her. He seemed puzzled.
"It's me Rika!" she shouted some more. "Remember me?"
"Something's wrong here, Rika," Renamon said, echoing Rika's
growing uncertainty.
"Maybe...maybe he's not Ryo's Monodramon?" Rika thought
aloud.
"Perhaps," Renamon said, uncertain.
"How many Monodramon can there be?" Rika asked.
As if in answer another Monodramon appeared beside the first.
Then more began stepping out of the fog until Rika faced a solid
wall of dozens, then hundreds of Monodramon.
"Oh dear," Renamon commented.
The fog lifted, revealing yet more Monodramon. There were
about a thousand of them that Rika could see. Towering over
the Monodramon were the two Digimon Sorcerers that Henry had
described. The green female had a Monodramon in one hand.
The froglike one with the beanie cap had a human being in one of
his hands. A familiar human being.
"Ryo!" Rika called. "What's going on?"
"Rika?" Ryo called back. "Ah, not to worry! Everything's under
control!"
"Indeed," the frog like Digimon commented. "Just not yours."
"Forward!" the green Digimon commanded. "I'm starving!" The
Monodramon began walking forward. They were headed right
towards Rika and company.
"Oh dear," Renamon repeated.