NOTE: Christian content.

Chapter 11: Mom and Dad

Rika was still a very unsure, broken child. She had stared into the face of death, and it still haunted her. She was unsure about herself and about other people, and she didn't know what she was supposed to do. She sat on top of Tina's bedroll next to Renamon, and Renamon was worried about Rika…she wasn't usually this sad. Usually she was angry, instead.

"Rika…"

Rika looked up at Renamon.

"Rika…you haven't been yourself, lately. Why is that…?"

Rika sighed, and a tear rolled down her cheek. Renamon came in closer to Rika and licked the tear away. "Rika, you can tell me. I'm your digimon partner; if we're going to be fighting together, then we should at least be friends."

Rika inhaled in the staggered way that a person inhales when she's crying, so Renamon knew something was wrong…something that had cut Rika in two.

Renamon put her paws around Rika. "Rika…please tell me what it is." Rika's sobs only got more pained. So Renamon pulled her in closer in a hug. "Rika…please tell me why you're crying."

"Because your spiked bracelets are poking me!"

Renamon quickly let go. "But there's something else that's bothering you. What is it? Ever since last night, you've been shy and you won't open your mouth. What is it?"

Rika sobbed again. "It's because I almost killed myself last night."

"What happened?"

"I went to the janitor's closet…I got some bleach and ammonia to mix together so that it would make a poison fume and kill me…and I went into the bathroom to mix them…and I tried to mix them…" Rika broke into sobs. Renamon began to get the idea of what was going on. She nuzzled Rika's cheek and licked the tears off again.

"Rika…if it's hurting you this much to remember it, then you should try to forget about it."

Rika shook her head. "…No, it's trying to forget stuff that happens to me that put me in that bathroom. I need to come to terms with my past, even if it was just last night, or I'll never recover from this. I need to keep going! …Right when I was about to mix the chemicals, Tina came in. She knocked the bottle out of my hands and wrestled me to the ground. She told me…" Rika stopped for a minute. "She---told---me that I was wrong…that her God kept me from killing myself by making her walk in at that exact moment…and that it was me holding all of this in that made me blow up at people."

"She was right. About all of it," Renamon answered. "And she was right about you never opening up that made you explode. And thanks…for finally telling me something." Renamon wanted to hug her, but she knew it was a bad idea. Renamon secretly hoped that this was going to be the start of a real friendship…not like the love-and-hate relationship that they had had before.

"No problem, Renamon…" Rika rested her head on the bedroll. "So…what's there to do now?"

"Rest…and hope there isn't another---"

At that moment, in came Tina, singing and dancing like a nymph from Greek mythology. (She was not singing and dancing like the kinds of nymph that really exist and tend metamorphose into adult insects. That would've been ugly.) She was singing in such a way that the words were unintelligible.

"What has you so happy?" Renamon asked.

"We found them!"

"Who?"

"Them!"

"Who them? …Them??"

"No, the other them."

"…Could you be more specific?"

"T.K., Cody, Misty, Tracy, Ghenki---"

"So you've found everyone?"

Tina sadly shook her head. "No, my mom is still missing. They got separated when they attacked the nuke plant."

"Oh…they were separated?"

"No, the first them got separated. We found the other them."

"I'm talking about they, not them."

"Oh, I didn't know." (1)

"Knock it off," Rika muttered, holding her ears shut.

Tina looked at the ground. "Sorry."

"Thanks. So…what all happened while we were away?"

"Nothing you don't already know." Tina sat down. "How're you keeping busy?"

"I'm not."

"Neither am I. And…" Tina sighed. "Man, I wish that we still had those TV sets and game systems. And Ingrid."

"Who's this Ingrid girl you keep talking about?"

"She's kind of my adopted daughter. The pokémon trainers and Ghenki found her in an old building and brought her to the nuke plant…and she was different from the rest; it was like her mind was totally reset. She didn't remember how to talk, and I'd think that she doesn't know who she is, either."

Rika looked at the ground. "Why is there nothing but bad stuff going on?"

"That's just the way life is. Bad stuff happens. You got three choices: complain about it, adapt, or do what Youngdramon and I are about to do."

"What's that?"

"Not be awake to experience it. Good night!" Tina flopped down on her pillow, not even bothering to get under the covers.

"Does that really work?" Rika asked.

"Not if people keep talking to you."

"But…you said not talking was a bad thing."

"I guess I did, didn't I?" Tina asked. "But what's there to talk about?"

"…You remember how you told me that your God stopped me from killing myself?"

"Yeah."

"…Why would He do that?"

"So Sablemon would be able to fight that giantor."

"He knows the future?"

"Yeah. And He has plans for you in it."

"Plans?? For…me? I don't even know anything about Him! Why is He interested in what happens to me?!"

"You're His daughter. Of course He cares!"

"…Could you run that by me again?"

"You're His daughter. That's why He cares what happens to you."

"How can I be His daughter?"

"He made you. He made the universe, ergo, He made you."

"But…but…a God calling me His daughter?" The words "His daughter"---whether the letter H was capitalized or not---were a shock to Rika. Her father had left the house when she was six…and that taught her not to trust anyone or open up her feelings to anyone, because she had feelings for her father, and he didn't respond well to her feelings. And now…a God wanted her for a daughter so much that He'd stop her from killing herself?

"Yeah. What's so special about that?" (Tina had heard "God is your Father" a million times.)

"But…" Rika gave up in trying to understand the idea. "I don't believe it!"

"Your loss."

******

"Moochi cannon!" Moochi and Guilmon were just about the only fighting fit creature with them, and The Unnamed Figure was pestering them again.

"Are you just going to keep attacking us until we're both worn out?" Yolei spat.

"What's it to you if I am?" he shot back. He thought to himself, Man! If I win this fight, I'll have to spare her life and make her one of the "personal maids" that the sub-major mentioned!

"Rrrrgh! I wish my husband was here!" she thought to herself. "Suezo, any chance we're teleporting out of this one?"

"I doubt it," Suezo tiredly groaned.

"Then it's up to me, chi!" Moochi shouted. "Let's do our thing!"

Yolei threw Moochi the digi-egg of love. "Moochi, module-evolve to…Turtledove!" Turtledove flew up to combat the spiderstrikes that The Unnamed Figure was summoning. "Tempest Cannon!" Moochi shouted, firing a few red beams of light at them.

Takato drew his D-Arc. "Digi-modify! Digivolution, activate!"

"You're in for a big surprise…literally," The Unnamed Figure sneered. "Time for you to see what these things are really capable of!"

Sixty spiderstrikes flew together in a spheroid formation… "Ferra-tor-cknii, noh kreshnaiona djom… Ferra‑tor‑khminn!" The sixty spiderstrikes became on huge menace machine: spidersphere.

GAZRIITOR:

Nickname: Spidersphere (Arubōru)
Real Name: Ferra-tor-khmin
Caste: To'vio
Modes: One
Special Attacks:
Tuli Dar Kamna
Comments:
The Spidersphere is a menace machine made up of sixty spiderstrikes. It has no propulsion system and its main purpose is to split up and deploy tor to a specific area. Before it splits up, it can fire Dar kamna beams from its constituent spiderstrikes' eyes, and the concentrated firepower is a match for a mega digimon's. It is also used in space combat situations, although, since it is immobile, it serves as more of a space artillery unit than anything else.

Beads of sweat trickling down his neck, Turtledove said, "I think we have a problem…"

"Tuli Dar Kamna!" the spidersphere shouted. A barrage of yellow beams of light flew out at Turtledove, bolts that he really wished he had the ability to reflect back.

"Suezo! I need help up here!" All Turtledove could do was dodge. He fired a shot or two back at the spidersphere, but it didn't seem to help.

"What can I do in this condition?" Suezo asked panting.

"Then somebody give me a hand before this ends up finishing me off!"

"Digivolve again, Growlmon!" Takato shouted, swiping another blue card through his D-Arc.

"Growlmon, digivolve to…Wargrowlmon!"

"I've an idea," Gatomon said.

Kari insisted, "You're still too weak to golden armor digivolve, and you and Hawkmon can't DNA digivolve, either!"

"I'm not planning on digivolving," Gatomon answered. She hopped out of Kari's arms. Her boots glowed a bright purple, and she stomped the ground with one of them. "Step of cat!" she shouted, and a purple streak of lighting flew across the ground at The Unnamed figure. He jumped out of the way of the streak. As he jumped, the spidersphere stopped firing, and Turtledove and Wargrowlmon landed a few more hits on the spidersphere. Several of the spidersphere's beam cannons were disabled. "Personally, I'm sick of you!" Gatomon snarled. "Step of cat!"

The Unnamed Figure had to jump out of the way again. "Likewise, fur ball!" he shot back. He aimed his gauntlet at her, and a white ray shot out at her. She ducked the ray and slashed at the weapon, neatly tearing it off his arm. She pitched it back at Yolei. "See if you can figure out how this thing works! I'm going to watch our little prisoner, here." Yolei began trying to make the spidersphere stop attacking and/or self-destruct, while Gatomon kept an eye on The Unnamed figure with her electric claws ready to shock him. But his cloak left a lot of room for unseen movement, and he managed to pull another weapon out of his pocket without being seen. He shot Gatomon with it and aimed it at Yolei.

"Your party ends here! The Linonian Empire will not lose the battle for earth---in fact, we've already won it! Earth is ours, and---"

He was cut off as a red beam of light sliced through his weapon. Turtledove was back, and Yolei had succeeded in shutting down the spidersphere.

Yolei glowered at him. "Now, you're going to give us some answers, or else I'll shoot you with your own weapon!"

The Unnamed Figure turned around and ran the other way. Yolei didn't shoot.

"Was that a bluff?" Kari asked.

"Yeah, that was a bluff."

"So now what?" Turtledove asked as he and Wargrowlmon landed and regressed back to Moochi and Guilmon.

"We need to find some safe place to hide. Especially---" Yolei was cut off as it started pouring rain. "…If the weather is about to turn rotten."

******

"Tina?" Ingrid asked again, hoping for some answer. There was no answer. Ingrid had been wandering the street for hours, and she suddenly had the urge to find some place to hide. She crept into an alleyway and curled up in a corner. She pulled a cardboard box over herself to try and stay hidden, because she was so terrified of being alone.

She heard a noise. "Tina?" she asked, hoping it was her adopted mother. A growl answered her, and she saw through a hole in the box that it was a canis-tor, looking for edible prey. She didn't make a noise and pulled her blanket over her head. The canis‑tor looked around, sniffed the air, and didn't find her. It left to search out other prey, but Ingrid didn't come out from under her blanket under she heard a rapping noise on the roof of her box.

"Tina?" she asked again, hoping for the best. It was followed by another thud. And another. "Is Tina?" Ingrid demanded. "Talk!" There were only more thuds, and more and more, until Ingrid couldn't bear wondering what the noises were any longer. She lifted up the box, and she saw that it was raining outside. She didn't want to leave the box, but the repeated drumming noise scared her. She curled up in a ball with her blanket over her head. "Tinaaaaaaaa…" she moaned.

(1) I wonder how long I can keep this stupid joke going…