Chapter 20: We Have Ignition!
Takato wondered if Rika was the same as she'd been before she arrived on this world. He knew it was a life-changing experience for him to see baby-eating monsters prowling the streets. But, then again, he figured that digimon suddenly becoming reality was another life-changer. If he knew Rika, she would be too shy to give him a direct answer if he asked her how she was. So he kept at the job of "seek patrol" and kept looking for people whom this horror had left to suffer from hunger and fear. He wasn't finding any, and Guilmon couldn't pick up one whiff of human or digimon scent.
His attention was broken as a downpour started without warning. He, Rika, Guilmon, and Renamon all dashed into the shelter of a store that was nearby, panting and brushing the rainwater off themselves before it got a chance to soak in.
"Well…I'm certainly glad they chose today to put me on seek patrol," Rika spat.
Takato pointed out, "Could be worse, Rika: they didn't send us out without raingear."
"True, but---"
Renamon let out a disgusted snort: she'd forgotten to listen to Mimi's warning not to get her dyed fur wet, and the cosmetic dye was running off the white spot on her fur!
"Uh-oh…" Rika thought aloud.
" 'Uh-oh'?! This is a disaster! Mimi is going to have to reapply this!"
"Calm down, Renamon," Takato insisted. "If we're out here to save people from man-eating robots, then I don't think anyone will particularly care how nice you look---so long as you don't look like a menace machine. Just put this on so it won't get any worse," he said as he handed Renamon a poncho from his knapsack.
"But---this poncho is clear!"
"So?"
"He'll be able to see my white spot right through it!"
" 'He'? Who?" Guilmon asked.
"……oooooooooooooh!" Takato cut in. "I think I see why you're upset with a little fur blemish!"
"Shut up!" Rika hissed. "You wonder why I don't like having friends? Well, here's another reason: you get made fun of!" Rika suddenly felt ashamed to have opened her mouth and expressed her lonely, shelled self. She tried not to show it, but her face went a little flush, against her wishes.
"But we're only joking around!" Takato said.
" 'We'? I don't know what you're talking about," Guilmon stammered. "What's really going on here, Takatomon?"
"It's not all that important," Renamon insisted. "I'd say that finding people who have been lost in a thunderstorm is more important than this."
They walked quite a bit more that day, and didn't find a soul, making the situation seem all the worse: they hiked for kilometers in the rain without having done any good of any kind. Rika and Renamon were extremely frustrated by this, and Takato was too, but he didn't show it as much. They were all dying for a hot shower at the end of the day, and the dampness and fatigue was enough to make Renamon forget---for a while---that she had a big, rectangular white spot on her fur, and that she had fur dye running down her leg in brown, caked-dry streaks.
She plopped down on the sofa with a black cloud still hovering over her head and raining on her brain. Davis was sitting next to her, not taking his eyes off the television set for one minute. He asked, "A little wet out there?"
Renamon snorted angrily.
"My sentiments exactly. Corn chips?"
"No, thank you…I've lost my appetite."
"Suit yourself. By the way, what happened to your fur? Why is it all white?"
Renamon's eyes bugged out like a pair of ping-pong balls as she realized that she had that ugly spot on her pelt. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck, and another drop joined it when she heard Hare entering the room. She had nothing to cover her white spot with, and Hare saw the spot. When Hare saw her embarrassed and guilty look, he realized that this had been what she had been hiding from him: her fur blemish. He was furious and hurt that she refused to let him in on such a small secret as that! …And the look of the blemish repulsed him, too; he had originally been attracted to Renamon's golden-colored fur. After that, Hare was not on speaking terms with Renamon, making her day even worse.
Rika wasn't very happy, herself: all the clothes Yolei had gotten for her were clothes made for a girl. They had things like "love" and "angel" and such stereotypically girly things written on them, and Rika was a tomboy to the core: she hated those kinds of things. But her cracked-heart blouse was drenched, and she'd had to put it through the laundry. The only problem was that the laundry lost her cracked-heart blouse, so, for now, the poor young lady was stuck looking like a girl. (The sentence I just wrote conveys such a horror! "The poor young lady was stuck looking like a girl!" Oh, no! Call in the ACLU and the marine corp.!)
So, Rika and Renamon were having a little talk in their room after that long, grueling day. "You know, I think I was actually happier bleaching mildew off the walls of the janitor's closets than I was walking around in the pouring rain for no good reason!"
"So was I," Renamon agreed. "And it gets better: Hare and I broke up."
"What?!"
"It's true: Hare found out that I was hiding the white spot from him, and he was so angry that I didn't tell him that he broke up with me."
Rika shook her head. "You know, I've never been in love before, but I bet that it bites to get dumped."
"It does. I've never felt worse in my life!"
Rika sighed angrily. "So…did we do something else to deserve getting punished like this? I mean, why did we get promoted, anyway?"
******
Matt was getting back up on his feet, again. He still had scars, but he was recovering quickly---almost too quickly for Pixie to believe.
"So…" Matt asked as Pixie was preparing another meal. "What kind of digimon are you?"
"Digimon?"
"Yeah. Aren't you a digimon?"
"Uh…no. Don't you mean 'pokémon'?"
"No…I've never heard of a pokémon, before."
"Join the club. I only heard about pokémon a few weeks ago, myself." There was another pair of long explanations, unnecessary to recount. They left Pixie and Matt more confused, again. "So if there are two---maybe three types of creature that I've never seen before… Then what is this place?" Pixie asked.
"I don't know. I've never been in this city before, either," Matt admitted. "I don't think this is even the same city that they caught me in."
Pixie sighed.
Big Blue nodded his agreement. "It is a very grave situation, milady: in an unknown and unfamiliar city with unknown creatures. ---And some of them hostile."
"No kidding."
As Punimon just finished eating the chewable kid's vitamins that Pixie had given him, he squeaked, "Punimon, digivolve to…Tsunomon!"
Pixie and Big Blue stared wide-eyed at the tiny digimon as he digivolved.
"That's a digivolution," Matt explained. "While they're this small, it happens when they get enough strength."
"I see…" Pixie was still feeling overwhelmed.
Matt walked over and tried to pick up Tsunomon, but his wounds reminded him of their presence. He yelled in pain, and Pixie immediately picked Matt up and set him back down on his "bed". "Listen," Pixie insisted, "You're not as recovered as you should be to move around so much."
"I think you're right," Matt agreed with a groan. He tasted the food, and Pixie could tell from his reaction that the food wasn't to his liking.
"I'm sorry; I'm not used to cooking so much. In fact, I hardly know anything about preparing food."
Matt swallowed. "It's better than starving. Thanks for cooking it; I really owe you a lot for getting me off those chains---"
"Don't even mention it."