Chapter 4: Raging
"Shakkoumon, mega-digivolve to…Totemmon!" Totemmon looked like a tree stump that floated in the air. It had the scowling, screaming face of some bird of prey carved on its front side, and it had a pair of stubby wings protruding out either side. It was made of dark, brown wood.
Blackwargreymon had a pretty good guess that this was a mega digimon, and that this would be a difficult fight. But he spun his Black tornado attack into its side and did his best to make a wound.
"Thunder Torrent!" Houndramon shouted, firing a blast of electricity out its mouth. Blackwargreymon stopped his attack and dodged beneath the shot.
Blackwargreymon flew away form the two digimon so that he'd be able to see both. "Terra Destroyer!" he shouted, winding up his attack.
"Destructor beam!" Totemmon shouted. A white beam of light shone out its mouth and sliced Blackwargreymon's attack right out of his hands. It also cut a very clean hole in skyscraper behind Blackwargreymon, so Blackwargreymon knew that this digimon had some firepower backing it up. "Still think you can take me on??"
"Funny, I was about to ask you that! Black tornado!" Blackwargreymon spiraled around Totemmon and kept it from getting a clean shot at him. Blackwargreymon occasionally came in for a hit and nicked off a bit here and a chunk there from Totemmon's body.
"No!" The Unnamed Figure shouted. "Digi-modify! Speed, activate!"
Totemmon began matching Blackwargreymon's speed and managed to get Blackwargreymon in its sights. "Destructor beam!"
Blackwargreymon took off his wing panels and reflected the beam back into Totemmon's mouth. The blast went right through Totemmon's hollow body and out the other side. Totemmon became Darkpatamon and Pangolimon again.
Blackwargreymon landed. The attack had erased his shield panels, but he would recover new ones eventually.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" The Unnamed Figure asked.
"Ah, yes. Thank you for reminding me," Blackwargreymon said as he wound up another fireball to do away with Houndramon.
The Unnamed Figure put his dodrio's pokéball in his D-Gauntlet. "Digi-modify! Co-Op Digivolution, activate!"
"Houndramon, co-op digivolve to…Saberus!" Saberus was a three-headed dog with huge teeth.
Blackwargreymon readied himself for a fight.
"Tri attack!" Saberus shouted. A stream of flame, a bolt of lightning, and a beam of icy energy flew at Blackwargreymon, one attack from each mouth. Blackwargreymon dodged each.
"Terra Destroyer!" Blackwargreymon hurled a bomb of fire at Saberus, but Saberus cancelled it with a blast of ice.
"Hyper Fang!" Saberus rushed at Blackwargreymon and tried to bite him, and Blackwargreymon barely had time to dodge out of the way.
So…it still has its speed modification once it co-op digivolves, Blackwargreymon thought. I just hope it's earthbound… Blackwargreymon picked up the deer and flew into the air, hoping to wear out his opponent by leading it on a wild goose chase. Unfortunately, his plan failed: Saberus leapt up and bit Blackwargreymon on his bare arm, and Blackwargreymon had to hold his arm to stop the loss of blood. But there was something strange about this…Saberus immediately broke off its attack as soon as it had bitten him…
"I really don't like the way that went," Blackwargreymon thought aloud. He would have to recuperate for a long time before his wing panels would be useful again. He sighed, and he flew down into the storm sewers with the deer still on his shoulders. "I have good news and bad news," Blackwargreymon yelled as he descended the ladder. "The good news is I found a deer…the bad news is---"
Ghenki's eyes grew a decimeter as he saw Blackwargreymon's wounds. "You need to have Dr. Kido see those right now!"
"I know," Blackwargreymon agreed. "But make sure this meat gets in the people's stomachs."
"What got you, anyhow?"
"I'm not exactly sure…I believe the human traitor has a few more tricks up his sleeve than we'd hoped…"
******
"♫♪This is the song that never ends,
"Yes it goes on and on my friend," (1)
"Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, ♫♪
"And they'll continue singing it forever just because
"This is the song that never ends, ♫ yes it goes on and on my friend!
"♫ Some people started---"
Rika held her hands over her ears. Finally, she reached for Youngdramon's duct tape, tore off a piece, and taped Tina's mouth shut.
"Hey! That's my personal space! Don't you go touching my duct tape!" Youngdramon snarled, covering the duct tape roll on her arm.
"Don't you go letting Tina annoy me like that!" Rika shot back. "It's bad enough being cooped up in here without her singing!"
"It's bad enough being cooped up here without her singing!" Youngdramon repeated with a nasal tone.
"…Or you mocking and repeating every last little thing I do!"
"Or you mocking and repeating every last little thing I do!"
Rika decided to just stop talking at that point. As usual, it was no use speaking with Youngdramon, but in a different way, this time. She let out a disgusted sigh, which Youngdramon mimicked perfectly. Rika got up and walked into the bank's restroom. Somehow, the water still ran in there. Youngdramon followed her in. They walked into the stalls, out of the stalls, washed their hands (or front claws, in Youngdramon's case), and exited the bathroom in perfect unison. Rika sat down next to Renamon. "Renamon, would you please protect me from that dragon over there?" Rika asked.
"Renamon, will you please protect me from that dragon over there?"
"I don't want to know, but I have a feeling that I do, anyway," Renamon answered, sitting down between Rika and Youngdramon so that Youngdramon wouldn't be able to see her.
"That's very true; you don't want to know," Rika answered.
Renamon tucked an arm around Rika and gave her a little squeeze, all the while keeping an eye on Youngdramon.
Youngdramon sat down next to Tina. "Man…uptight little pair, huh?"
Taking the tape off her mouth, Tina agreed, "Yeah. It's a wonder we ever got along as roommates, isn't it?"
"No kidding. …Do we apologize?"
"Not just yet. Wait until she's not ticked."
"…One question…did we ever get along with her?"
"Come to think of it, I don't know," Tina answered. "Oh, well…we'll just wait it out."
"What'll we do in the meantime?" Youngdramon asked. (She was setting up for a joke.)
"What were we doing before this started?"
"Waiting."
"And what were we doing while we were waiting?"
"Oh, that's right! …♫This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my---"
Rika moaned. Then she thought to herself, There's only one way to stop this. She began to walk towards Tina with a genuine, spiteful scowl. She kept staring at Tina with her scowl as she walked up to her and stood in front of her. She glowered at Tina as if to say, "Stop singing that annoying music!" but Tina only kept singing it, and she had difficulty keeping a straight face as she sang it. Tina actually smiled at Rika as she sang.
That was the last straw. Rika had gotten a lot of hate built up in her over the past few days, and it was too much. She grabbed onto Tina's glasses, knowing that Yolei had considered the glasses some kind of Holy Grail of her personality. Tina grabbed the glasses, too, and a tug-of-war started. As Tina looked into Rika's eyes, she began to realize that this spite in Rika was real; she wasn't pretending, and she wasn't having fun like Tina was. Tina had really been torturing the poor girl on the inside. Tina let go of the glasses with a surprised look on her face. Rika took them and tried to tear them in two, but she wasn't quite strong enough. Tina waited until Rika stopped trying to tear them apart, then quickly snatched them back. "If that's the way you really felt, you should've said something."
Rika slapped Tina across the face, and it made a loud noise.
Ken looked at the fight. He started walking toward them. "Hey, children! Break it up! We can't afford to fight amongst ourselves!" He took Rika by the wrist and dragged her away. He was shouting so that both girls would hear him. "I don't know or care who started this, but I'm ending it. And if I see either of you fighting again, you'll get corporal punishment!" Ken threw Rika down next to Renamon.
Rika was a little satisfied: she'd gotten across that Tina really shouldn't be irritating her, and Tina didn't sing for the rest of the afternoon. And Ken had a heart-to-heart with his daughter, which was an added bonus. But it wasn't so great when Ken was holding Tina by the shoulder and was taking her to Rika.
While they were still coming towards her and before either of them had said anything to her, Rika blurted, "What is this, an apology? You aren't really sorry!"
"But I am sorry, Rika!" Tina insisted.
"You…are…not!" Rika thundered. "Keep your mushy little guilt-speech to yourself; I don't even want to hear it!"
"But---"
"Get out of here!!!" Rika screamed, lunging up at Tina with balled fists. Renamon held her back, but Rika kept struggling to attack Tina.
"That's enough, Renamon!" Ken shouted. He threw Tina behind his back and drew out his whip.
"Daddy, no!" Tina yelled. Ken didn't listen: he pulled up Rika's blouse so that his whip would hit skin instead of cloth. Blow after blow fell on Rika's back, until Rika collapsed in a mess of tears and adrenaline.
Tina watched the entire thing, not knowing how to react: should she hold her dad back, or not? She didn't make up her mind in time: her dad was done before she did anything. Ken reached for his daughter and escorted her back to where she had been sitting before. He yelled over his shoulder as he moved his daughter away, "Renamon, get her bandaged up." Ken sat next to his daughter to make sure nothing else would happen. "Tina, why do I have to do this? You're thirteen years old; you should be mature enough not to get into fights!"
"Dad, I wasn't lying to you or Rika. I am sorry for singing at her like that!"
"Then why did you?"
"Because…" Tina sighed. "Okay, it was because I was bored…and because I didn't think she was that ticked off for what I was doing."
"You're her roommate; you should know better than anyone how angry she can become."
"I know…I should've thought of that…but she never opens up and talks about her feelings! How am I supposed to know what's going through her head??"
Ken sighed. "We're going to need to keep you two separate."
"But---!"
"What good reason do you have for getting near her again?"
"…I guess it's because I want to make it up to her."
"She won't accept your apologies; she's too far-gone for that."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"Keep away from her."
Tina buried her face in her hands.
Joey poked his head out of Tina's overalls pocket. "Dad no need tell Tina that. Joey can tell her that Tina should keep away from Rika."
Tina pushed Joey back into the pocket.
(1) For those of you who don't know (hey, it's a big planet: it could happen!) this song was sung at the end of every episode of the kid's TV show "Lampchop's Play-Along", much to the chagrin of the host of that show: she found it unbearably annoying, as does Rika. I have no idea where the writers of that show got the song---maybe they made it up, I don't know.