Part 21: Digimon Biology 101
"No wonder you're always hungry!" Lambert proffered the digimon's thin arm for Nicholas to see as if she believed its condition was somehow his fault. (Which, considering what she knew of his food-stocking abilities, she probably did.) "Nick---he looks at the point of starvation!"
The jade eyes blinked in surprise. "Actually, I am feeling satisfied at this moment. Please do not distress yourself." He flexed his muscles. "See---there is nothing amiss, lady Natalie. Are you going to put away the needle now?" he asked hopefully, not anxious to be used as a pincushion no matter the reason.
"Nothing amiss?" Natalie snorted at the magician. "How about some flesh on these arms?! I've seen pictures of Holocaust survivors that looked in better health. And are all these white markings natural? They look like whip scars."
"Holocaust?" Wizardmon asked, his mind suddenly flooded with disturbing images of fire, sorrow and fear not his own. He tried to push the feelings back down, but they were hard to ignore and were starting to mix with his own terrors:
Fire! Hurt! Struggle! Bat wings--Pain! Evil! Fight! Lights-Crash! Grief! Hide!
He screwed his eyes shut and bit back a groan.
"Did Myotismon do this?" Nicholas asked, touching one of the pale lines that crisscrossed each other.
"Myotismon is that creep you said was like Lacroix, right Nick?" Natalie asked.
"Um… sort of. Actually, I said that he was a megalomaniacal vampire, Nick answered, distracted by the feeling that something wasn't right.
.
"Same thing," she snarled, still holding the confused Wizardmon by the arm. "What a monster---whipping a child!"
"Nat…" Nicholas cautioned, seeing that both of his friends were looking pretty strained and belatedly realizing what was wrong. Usually pretty even keeled, Natalie Lambert had suffered two major traumas in her life that had affected her deeply. One was her parents getting caught in a fateful car explosion. The other was the physical abuse suffered by an overly strict grandmother turned guardian. Wizardmon was already upset---now he was picking up Lambert's strong emotions and it wasn't helping. He laid a comforting arm around her shoulders and tried to separate them. But her grip felt like iron and he was worried that if he used adequate force, he might injure one or both of his friends.
"Nat… it's okay. It's over. Just let it go."
She apparently wasn't listening to him or seeing the effect she was having on the digimon.
"Children aren't punching bags!" she spat.
Keeping his voice soothing, Nicholas tried again to get through to the doctor.
"Nat, he's not a child, okay? What happened between you and your grandma isn't being repeated here."
"I know that!" Natalie snapped back. She threw her head back and counted to ten. Nick was right, but she wasn't ready to let go of the anger and pain quite yet: that someone that was supposed to have protected her could have hurt her so badly. Left her granddaughter as… What was that old expression? One of the Walking Wounded?
"I thought all digimon wounds healed quickly?" she asked, seeking something safe to dwell upon.
"No... They do! These are…a bit different." Wizardmon babbled out, answering their earlier questions in sudden rush. He yanked his arm back and gulped down two great draughts of air, hugging himself. With the direct contact between them broken, her turbulent emotions subsided to bearable levels within his mind.
Bios---he'd always been perceptive to empathy before but never like since dropping into Nicholas' reality! And his nigh constant hunger---the ghost of which he could detect were slowly building up again… Could the two symptoms be related? Were they a side effect of his data being in an alien world as well--- or more empathizing with his friend's struggle with his blood lust?
Undeterred and angry at this evidence of abuse---it didn't help that Wizardmon reminded her so much of a child, either! ---, Natalie felt down his lower leg. "At least you seem to have a substantial amount of bulk on your lower extremities, she said to herself as she pulled up on a pant's leg. "That could account for why you've been able to move around---"
The coroner's eyes went wide as pie plates as her jaw slackened. She'd been preparing herself for more evidence of past violence, but…. Nothing had prepared her for this!
"Nat?!" the vampire exclaimed as his human friend went unnaturally pale. He put his arms around her to keep her from toppling over. "Nat? What is it? What did you find?"
Wordlessly, Dr. Lambert pointed a finger at the area where the digimon's jumpsuit had been pulled from his boot. The baggy material had fallen back down again, so Nick pushed it back up.
Mother of God!
There was nothing there but a swirling, pitch-black mist. Mechanically, he pushed the fabric up to the area where a knee should be. It was all mist; though the color was gradually changing to something closer to a mixture of bluish gray along with the receding ebony. With his superior eyesight, he could even make out as minute particles of the gas were slowly starting to clump together into a more solid form.
The digimon, who had been about to make a run for it when Dr. Lambert had taken his leg in hand, frowned as curiosity overcame his reflective feelings of panic.
"Is something wrong?" Wizardmon asked, concerned that both human and vampire's thoughts had gone totally chaotic like a television station whose signal had been suddenly cut off. He glanced around, but did not see anything that could account for their frozen demeanor.
"Wizardmon...where are your legs?" Nicholas asked dry mouthed.
"Right there, where they have always been. Why?"
Natalie finally found her voice. "There's nothing there but a... a black cloud!"
The wizard leaned over to see, frowning at his lower extremity. "Yes. It is darker now because of all your good food. I am really feeling almost my old self, thank you, Lady Natalie."
"You're welcome," Natalie responded mechanically. She shook her head and tried to regain her sense of professional objectivity. "Tell me... are you... I mean... how far up..?"
The digimon took a moment to think about it before answering, ""I am always solid to about here, if that is what you are asking;" Wizardmon used his gloved hand to indicate a level just below his rib cage. "When I am very hungry, more of me firms up."
"Um..." De Brabant gulped, "Not that I would know myself, but shouldn't that be the other way around?"
The jade eyes blinked gazed upon the vampire as the head tilted in a gesture of inquiry. "Should it? It has always been this way since my last digivolve into this level. In fact, being hungry is not only annoying, but dangerous as I can't fly then."
"You mean being mostly comprised of heavy gases is healthy for you?" Natalie asked, trying to wrap her mind around the concept.
"Yes... I suppose so. The sky has always been the place I feel most comfortable. To be anchored to the ground is not... as comfortable," he trailed off. "I am sorry, but it is hard to explain these things to another. But when I am with the air it's as if it becomes me and I, it. In the air I am at ease, for I do not feel so alone, yet I am above the chaotic thoughts of those on the ground." Long pause. "To be airborne is to be at peace with myself"
Nick found himself nodding. "Yes. I feel the same way. It's as if the stars are talking just to you, and though your mind cannot understand them, your body does and the exhilaration of the communion..." Realizing he was talking aloud, De Brabant coughed. "Sorry."
Wizardmon smiled. "No need.... I'm glad we share this; though you, Nick, are as tied to the earth as to the sky." He turned his smile to the woman. "Before I met Gatomon I had been flying a over a desert. It is harder to stay aloft when it's hot, and I allowed myself to stay up too long without eating. So caught was I in my own thoughts that I did not notice my growing heaviness until too late. I went plummeting downward to crash on a busy main street. It is a wonder I didn't land on anyone." He paused to offer a rueful smile. "Of course if I had, they might have actually taken notice of me."
"Gatomon?" Natalie asked. "That sounds familiar. You were saying something like that when Nick brought you in."
"She is a feline digimon."
"She's your cat?"
"No! I don't own Gatomon. It is the other way around!" Wizardmon stated vehemently, eyes fierce. Nick got ready to intervene again. The anger subsided quickly though as he saw that she meant no offense by her words. "Gatomon and I have a long and… troubled past. It seems that seeing your cat has triggered some of the more volatile memories of my past. I'm sorry that I've acted so… surly… and scared you and Nicholas. You've both been so kind. I've been a very poor houseguest, I'm afraid."
"Don't worry about it. Nothing broken is irreplaceable."
Wizardmon frowned, remembering those horrible days in Myotismon's army. If he'd acted this way with Myotismon the vampire would have deleted him without a thought.
"Wait a minute," Natalie shook her head, "Back up a bit. You're saying you're the property of this Gatomon?"
"Yes."
"She purchased you?"
Wizardmon chuckled. "You could say that. Bought and paid for only the price of a drink of water. Quite a bargain, eh?"
"That's terrible!"
"Not to me."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this!" Natalie grimaced. "Slavery is evil."
The mage's humor evaporated as jade eyes turned hard. "I agree. I hated seeing Gatomon subject to Myotismon's whims. And he would turn all of the Real World into his food larder as well? Evil indeed."
"I don't understand you at all. You say you hated Myotismon's slavery---but are happy to be a slave to your Gatomon?"
"You're right," Wizardmon sighed, "you don't understand. We were trapped into Myotismon's service by means of his power to kill us. That is not the servitude I'm speaking of with my friend. You see, Gatomon came when the noon day sun had driven everyone indoors. I was so hot! She gave me water and carried me to a secluded place to tend me in my weakness. It seemed a long while before I was strong enough to fly again. But that was okay, because I was able to learn about my new friend, Gatomon, before her evil master hid her memories away."
"Myotismon," Nicholas explained to Natalie. "Is an evil vampire of Wizardmon's world who whammied Gatomon into thinking she was evil as well. Despite that, Wizardmon stayed with her, eventually sacrificing himself to see her free. What Wizardmon calls slavery in regards to himself, Nat, is actually voluntary indenture. Very much like what I did with Lacroix."
"And look how that ended up!"
Looking hurt, De Brabant shook his head. "Don't, Nat. At the time it was my choice as well. And I was very happy with the arrangement. Anyway, there are human cultures where the rescued becomes the life servant of his rescuer. It sounds like Wizardmon's case is no different from that."
Wizardmon nodded. "I owe her all that I have, Lady Natalie. More so in that she herself did not request my service to help free her from the beast. It was my gift to her to give her that opportunity.. These were the only things I possessed that were close to being worthy---my breath, my strength, my time. It has been hard, I admit. For a long time she barely knew me. She even hurt me without blinking an eye. And then there were the others too---the rest of the Nightmare Army. I was new and not trusted, considered fair game for attack. As my commander, Gatomon gave me some protection, but… It was awful; however I had no ready way to free her or restore her memories as long as Myotismon was always near. And she held the right to delete me, both by Myotismon's decree and my own thinking. I had to be very, very, careful."
"No wonder you're always hungry!" Lambert proffered the digimon's thin arm for Nicholas to see as if she believed its condition was somehow his fault. (Which, considering what she knew of his food-stocking abilities, she probably did.) "Nick---he looks at the point of starvation!"
The jade eyes blinked in surprise. "Actually, I am feeling satisfied at this moment. Please do not distress yourself." He flexed his muscles. "See---there is nothing amiss, lady Natalie. Are you going to put away the needle now?" he asked hopefully, not anxious to be used as a pincushion no matter the reason.
"Nothing amiss?" Natalie snorted at the magician. "How about some flesh on these arms?! I've seen pictures of Holocaust survivors that looked in better health. And are all these white markings natural? They look like whip scars."
"Holocaust?" Wizardmon asked, his mind suddenly flooded with disturbing images of fire, sorrow and fear not his own. He tried to push the feelings back down, but they were hard to ignore and were starting to mix with his own terrors:
Fire! Hurt! Struggle! Bat wings--Pain! Evil! Fight! Lights-Crash! Grief! Hide!
He screwed his eyes shut and bit back a groan.
"Did Myotismon do this?" Nicholas asked, touching one of the pale lines that crisscrossed each other.
"Myotismon is that creep you said was like Lacroix, right Nick?" Natalie asked.
"Um… sort of. Actually, I said that he was a megalomaniacal vampire, Nick answered, distracted by the feeling that something wasn't right.
.
"Same thing," she snarled, still holding the confused Wizardmon by the arm. "What a monster---whipping a child!"
"Nat…" Nicholas cautioned, seeing that both of his friends were looking pretty strained and belatedly realizing what was wrong. Usually pretty even keeled, Natalie Lambert had suffered two major traumas in her life that had affected her deeply. One was her parents getting caught in a fateful car explosion. The other was the physical abuse suffered by an overly strict grandmother turned guardian. Wizardmon was already upset---now he was picking up Lambert's strong emotions and it wasn't helping. He laid a comforting arm around her shoulders and tried to separate them. But her grip felt like iron and he was worried that if he used adequate force, he might injure one or both of his friends.
"Nat… it's okay. It's over. Just let it go."
She apparently wasn't listening to him or seeing the effect she was having on the digimon.
"Children aren't punching bags!" she spat.
Keeping his voice soothing, Nicholas tried again to get through to the doctor.
"Nat, he's not a child, okay? What happened between you and your grandma isn't being repeated here."
"I know that!" Natalie snapped back. She threw her head back and counted to ten. Nick was right, but she wasn't ready to let go of the anger and pain quite yet: that someone that was supposed to have protected her could have hurt her so badly. Left her granddaughter as… What was that old expression? One of the Walking Wounded?
"I thought all digimon wounds healed quickly?" she asked, seeking something safe to dwell upon.
"No... They do! These are…a bit different." Wizardmon babbled out, answering their earlier questions in sudden rush. He yanked his arm back and gulped down two great draughts of air, hugging himself. With the direct contact between them broken, her turbulent emotions subsided to bearable levels within his mind.
Bios---he'd always been perceptive to empathy before but never like since dropping into Nicholas' reality! And his nigh constant hunger---the ghost of which he could detect were slowly building up again… Could the two symptoms be related? Were they a side effect of his data being in an alien world as well--- or more empathizing with his friend's struggle with his blood lust?
Undeterred and angry at this evidence of abuse---it didn't help that Wizardmon reminded her so much of a child, either! ---, Natalie felt down his lower leg. "At least you seem to have a substantial amount of bulk on your lower extremities, she said to herself as she pulled up on a pant's leg. "That could account for why you've been able to move around---"
The coroner's eyes went wide as pie plates as her jaw slackened. She'd been preparing herself for more evidence of past violence, but…. Nothing had prepared her for this!
"Nat?!" the vampire exclaimed as his human friend went unnaturally pale. He put his arms around her to keep her from toppling over. "Nat? What is it? What did you find?"
Wordlessly, Dr. Lambert pointed a finger at the area where the digimon's jumpsuit had been pulled from his boot. The baggy material had fallen back down again, so Nick pushed it back up.
Mother of God!
There was nothing there but a swirling, pitch-black mist. Mechanically, he pushed the fabric up to the area where a knee should be. It was all mist; though the color was gradually changing to something closer to a mixture of bluish gray along with the receding ebony. With his superior eyesight, he could even make out as minute particles of the gas were slowly starting to clump together into a more solid form.
The digimon, who had been about to make a run for it when Dr. Lambert had taken his leg in hand, frowned as curiosity overcame his reflective feelings of panic.
"Is something wrong?" Wizardmon asked, concerned that both human and vampire's thoughts had gone totally chaotic like a television station whose signal had been suddenly cut off. He glanced around, but did not see anything that could account for their frozen demeanor.
"Wizardmon...where are your legs?" Nicholas asked dry mouthed.
"Right there, where they have always been. Why?"
Natalie finally found her voice. "There's nothing there but a... a black cloud!"
The wizard leaned over to see, frowning at his lower extremity. "Yes. It is darker now because of all your good food. I am really feeling almost my old self, thank you, Lady Natalie."
"You're welcome," Natalie responded mechanically. She shook her head and tried to regain her sense of professional objectivity. "Tell me... are you... I mean... how far up..?"
The digimon took a moment to think about it before answering, ""I am always solid to about here, if that is what you are asking;" Wizardmon used his gloved hand to indicate a level just below his rib cage. "When I am very hungry, more of me firms up."
"Um..." De Brabant gulped, "Not that I would know myself, but shouldn't that be the other way around?"
The jade eyes blinked gazed upon the vampire as the head tilted in a gesture of inquiry. "Should it? It has always been this way since my last digivolve into this level. In fact, being hungry is not only annoying, but dangerous as I can't fly then."
"You mean being mostly comprised of heavy gases is healthy for you?" Natalie asked, trying to wrap her mind around the concept.
"Yes... I suppose so. The sky has always been the place I feel most comfortable. To be anchored to the ground is not... as comfortable," he trailed off. "I am sorry, but it is hard to explain these things to another. But when I am with the air it's as if it becomes me and I, it. In the air I am at ease, for I do not feel so alone, yet I am above the chaotic thoughts of those on the ground." Long pause. "To be airborne is to be at peace with myself"
Nick found himself nodding. "Yes. I feel the same way. It's as if the stars are talking just to you, and though your mind cannot understand them, your body does and the exhilaration of the communion..." Realizing he was talking aloud, De Brabant coughed. "Sorry."
Wizardmon smiled. "No need.... I'm glad we share this; though you, Nick, are as tied to the earth as to the sky." He turned his smile to the woman. "Before I met Gatomon I had been flying a over a desert. It is harder to stay aloft when it's hot, and I allowed myself to stay up too long without eating. So caught was I in my own thoughts that I did not notice my growing heaviness until too late. I went plummeting downward to crash on a busy main street. It is a wonder I didn't land on anyone." He paused to offer a rueful smile. "Of course if I had, they might have actually taken notice of me."
"Gatomon?" Natalie asked. "That sounds familiar. You were saying something like that when Nick brought you in."
"She is a feline digimon."
"She's your cat?"
"No! I don't own Gatomon. It is the other way around!" Wizardmon stated vehemently, eyes fierce. Nick got ready to intervene again. The anger subsided quickly though as he saw that she meant no offense by her words. "Gatomon and I have a long and… troubled past. It seems that seeing your cat has triggered some of the more volatile memories of my past. I'm sorry that I've acted so… surly… and scared you and Nicholas. You've both been so kind. I've been a very poor houseguest, I'm afraid."
"Don't worry about it. Nothing broken is irreplaceable."
Wizardmon frowned, remembering those horrible days in Myotismon's army. If he'd acted this way with Myotismon the vampire would have deleted him without a thought.
"Wait a minute," Natalie shook her head, "Back up a bit. You're saying you're the property of this Gatomon?"
"Yes."
"She purchased you?"
Wizardmon chuckled. "You could say that. Bought and paid for only the price of a drink of water. Quite a bargain, eh?"
"That's terrible!"
"Not to me."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this!" Natalie grimaced. "Slavery is evil."
The mage's humor evaporated as jade eyes turned hard. "I agree. I hated seeing Gatomon subject to Myotismon's whims. And he would turn all of the Real World into his food larder as well? Evil indeed."
"I don't understand you at all. You say you hated Myotismon's slavery---but are happy to be a slave to your Gatomon?"
"You're right," Wizardmon sighed, "you don't understand. We were trapped into Myotismon's service by means of his power to kill us. That is not the servitude I'm speaking of with my friend. You see, Gatomon came when the noon day sun had driven everyone indoors. I was so hot! She gave me water and carried me to a secluded place to tend me in my weakness. It seemed a long while before I was strong enough to fly again. But that was okay, because I was able to learn about my new friend, Gatomon, before her evil master hid her memories away."
"Myotismon," Nicholas explained to Natalie. "Is an evil vampire of Wizardmon's world who whammied Gatomon into thinking she was evil as well. Despite that, Wizardmon stayed with her, eventually sacrificing himself to see her free. What Wizardmon calls slavery in regards to himself, Nat, is actually voluntary indenture. Very much like what I did with Lacroix."
"And look how that ended up!"
Looking hurt, De Brabant shook his head. "Don't, Nat. At the time it was my choice as well. And I was very happy with the arrangement. Anyway, there are human cultures where the rescued becomes the life servant of his rescuer. It sounds like Wizardmon's case is no different from that."
Wizardmon nodded. "I owe her all that I have, Lady Natalie. More so in that she herself did not request my service to help free her from the beast. It was my gift to her to give her that opportunity.. These were the only things I possessed that were close to being worthy---my breath, my strength, my time. It has been hard, I admit. For a long time she barely knew me. She even hurt me without blinking an eye. And then there were the others too---the rest of the Nightmare Army. I was new and not trusted, considered fair game for attack. As my commander, Gatomon gave me some protection, but… It was awful; however I had no ready way to free her or restore her memories as long as Myotismon was always near. And she held the right to delete me, both by Myotismon's decree and my own thinking. I had to be very, very, careful."