Finding Lost Origin
Chapter 1: Taking the First Step
It was a refreshing morning. The sound of crickets died down as the songs of bird and singing digimon started to pierce the morning's silence. The sun's rays had barely touched across the sky when Renamon awoke. Prying her eyes open, the fox inhaled deeply as she sat up and flicked a ear. Pushing the blankets and cushions away, she glanced over the rest of the still snoring forms and padded quietly towards the entrance of the hut. Once outside, she looked around, surprised to see how different the village seemed to her.
Yes it was still the same. Everything was neatly in its place, the huts arranged in order, baskets and rakes stacked neatly by the sides, wooden poles leaning against the cold earthen walls. Little bits of colored streamers still hung from the rooftops and on the ground just the traces of what had been a week's long party. What startled Renamon were the mists that rose from the dew-covered grass. The detail that she saw through her sharp eyes was astonishing. Every blade of grass, dew drops on fresh green shoots, the feel of the wind that made the fields flow like water. Renamon couldn't help but sigh.
"What's wrong Renamon?"
Came the deeper sturdier voice of Cyberdramon as he made his way over to her. Dang. He was already one level higher than her.
"Nothing much. I'm just making sure I remember this place before I leave."
The vixen turned her head to one side, gazing at the horizon that was being stained a bright red with the rising sun, painting the sky a myriad of colors.
"I understand. It has been good to know you Renamon."
Cyberdramon said softly then turned his head upwards.
"Yes. It has been good to know you too Cyberdramon."
Renamon replied, noting that there was a sudden air of formality between them. Why are goodbyes always the hardest?
"When the soft toys wake up, tell them..."
"That you'll miss us? That we'll always be friends? Leave it to me Renamon. I'll take care of them." Cyberdramon replied smiling warmly.
Renamon nodded once and smiled. The ice broken, she clasped his clawed hand for a few seconds as a symbol of friendship before finally turning around to start her journey away from the village and the friends that she had grown so close to. Friends that she had strangely started off introductions by attacking them. As she paced herself in her own self-confident steps, something dawned on her. His hand was so...warm.
She had always wondered what it was like to be in 'cyber' mode or even worse a 'metal' evolution. To have half of one's body turned into a steel cold material. What about the heart then? Would the heart still pump blood or would it cease to exist because the power of a metal digimon would be generated by its engine? Those few moments had alleviated some of her doubts. Metal or cyber, what mattered was the emotions and strength in friendships fostered.
A few paces later she started suddenly into a running sprint. Bounding with energy, she felt her blood heat as her breathing quickened. The heat of life flowing through her veins as muscles contracted bringing the fox to a near light-speed blur. Something exploded within her that filled her body with fire from her chest rippling down to her paws and the tip of her tail. It was some time before fatigue set into her muscles, her legs starting to cramp from the lack of enough stretching before such a rigorous run.
Panting heavily but feeling empowered, the fox digimon came to rest at the edge of the forest. Placing a paw on the rough bark of a young pine to steady her quivering body, she rested. How much distance had she covered? A few hundred meters? A few miles. She had grown so careless she hadn't kept track of her direction. Now she would be lost! No not careless... carefree. Yes. She could run where she pleased, lie where she wished and ate whatever she felt like it. Freedom was hers again. She was like a beast, having tasted the control of man over her, turned wild again. She halted her reflections, mentally slapping herself.
'No, Rika was a nice girl, she just didn't realize earlier that digimon were more than fighting machines, and I've forgiven her for that already. We're partners. A part of each other separated by fate and the thin infinite wall between reality and the virtual.'
Renamon sat down and leaned back against the rough bark of the pine, playing idly with fallen twigs on the ground between her three-digit paws.
'How much I've changed. Before I went into the real world I barely paused for this kind of silly things. Things were just things, like twigs were just twigs, nothing more... hey this looks like a human stick-figure... yes indeed I've changed a lot.'
When Renamon had caught her breath, she stood up again and took her bearings. It was best that she proceeded carefully. The words came back to her again. When she had found the meaning of life, she was to return to her roots. Her roots... it seemed like so long ago when she left the digiworld. On her part it had been an impulsive and reckless attitude that led her to be expelled, then came the days of cold anger when a sudden sense of self-control overtook her and she fought everyone in her way, only thinking of gaining power. To become more powerful so that she would prove THEM wrong. That she didn't need to go on some stupid quest to search for the meaning of life. How wrong she had been.
'I'm near the edge of the digiforest. If I had been running in a straight line more or less... it would be around half a day before I'm within the home grounds.'
With the new lease of life, Renamon started forward again in a steady walk. There was no point reaching the home grounds within one-tenth of the expected journey time by sprinting and using up her energy. She wasn't sure if her energy level was within a range safe enough to ensure she wouldn't de-digivolve at the wrong moment, and the forest outside the home grounds was always full of danger. It was full of predatory digimon or those just wanting to pick off weaklings or those sniffing around for a fight.
'Those guys can try me anytime. I'm ready for them. Besides, if they won't listen to logic, they can always feel my paws!'
So she walked. And walked. And walked. The scenery barely changed even as she trudged through the forest going deeper and deeper. The undergrowth thickened and the sunlight got lesser and lesser, blocked by the heavy canopy overhead. Rays of golden filtered in through the shadows of lightly swaying leaves. The air was still full of singing and the calls of the native digimon in their own language. Gradually the ground became harder to walk upon, trees growing so closely that the roots touched each other and created a tangle of ridges that Renamon had to climb over and hop to and from. But it was a fascinating easy game for a swift light-footed vixen as her.
It felt so good to be home. To taste once more the warmth of the forest, albeit a little too balmy. The green alluring smell of nature's trees, where the wild was danger and danger was wild. Where everything interconnected the forests inhabitants to the forests, to the environment and back to nature herself. The home-sick fox danced lightly upon the branches of the trees as she darted upwards, seeking the firm branches of the forest that held her aloft in partial sky and partial footing. Pausing every now and then, Renamon would climb so very gracefully to the very top of a tall tree still the branches bent under her light weight. Then she would scan the never ending horizon of trees... and trees and more trees.
It was perhaps the sixth time she did so, taking her bearings from a towering pine that she finally sighed and grew used to the mundane scenery.
"This is going to take quite a while..."
And she was right.
Evening drew nearer and nearer and a small growl came from Renamon's tummy. Her stomach protested in soft mumbles from beneath the silky white fur of her belly. The kitsune quelled her hunger with some of the native fruit of the forest. She grasped black claws around a large orange thing suspended from a vine that wound up around a young sapling. The vine was using the sapling for support as the two struggled to reach the sunlight. Renamon shook her head at the sight as she bit down into the ripe fruit, fangs sliding effortlessly through the fibers of the fruit. A second later her mouth was full of the sweet sugary juices from the fruit. She downed it and licked her paws quickly. It would be embarrassing if anyone were to see her doing that.
"Someone bite me if I'm not any nearer to the home grounds!"
Renamon growled aloud. But the answer was waiting for her, right past the dropping cliffs of the forest. As she neared the edge to the cliffs, her heart pounding with excitement and the familiarity of the place, she saw, from the thinning of the trees, a horrifying sight to behold. From the cliffs, the ground dropped sharply downwards to a trickling stream below and what should have been lush forests and fortified huts and tree houses... was but naked ground.
It was black. A smoking dank swampy sort of place. Brown liquid of what had been flowing springs from the mountains bubbled and dribbled lazily through the dark brown mush of mud and decaying ground. The stench was so heavy that even from the top of the cliff, a slight gust of wind would make Renamon's lungs burn and send her gagging through waves of nausea. Was this... her home?!
Impossible! Impossible! Not possible! No one could have possibly done this to her home! Yet the contours of the ground and the hills and the cliffs, were all too familiar and matching to her memory. Her mind was filled with a heavy sense of detachment and for once the self-confident fox warrior felt totally... completely... lost.
Going down into the marshy area was completely out of the question. The smell of the decaying matter choked her lungs and layers of ammonia rose from the green-brown glop. Renamon circled around the territory, blatantly calling out like a lost lamb, totally uncharacteristic of herself. She called, screamed, yelled till her throat felt raw with the strain and her voice turning hoarse.
"Anybody?! Anyone at all?!"
She was in a living nightmare. There was no one around. Not even a fleeting shadow of her former companions. Not even a paw print on the ground. Running around, Renamon finally noticed that the smaller creatures living in the green forest nearby disappeared frantically at the sight of her. Nevermind that she was a well-known fighter, but there was no reason to flee from a renamon around here. No! Because down here, right where the huts and forests and stone carvings used to be, were the dwellings of one of the most respected digimon clan around. The MoonFox Clan of renamon. Hidden deep within the jungle and forests of the digiworld. Abode to the weak and injured digimon, the shelter of the growing and the solace of the threatened. The area looked more like the abyss of hell now...
Frustration welling up within her angered spirit, Renamon finally chased a small wild gabumon down and gripped its arms with her paws. She restrained herself from shaking the poor lost feline as she practically screamed at it.
"The others! Where are they?!"
She was going to get no where in that mood. The gabumon stuttered and Renamon saw that loosing her temper was not going to get her any answers. She drew in a deep breath and relaxed her hold on the small startled feline.
"I'm sorry. Please. Tell me where the others have gone. The MoonFox Clan."
The gabumon blinked and looked at her as if she were an alien or some weird mutated thing, much to her annoyance.
"I... I don't know. Th...they h...haven't been around f...for a long t...time. Not since the big black thing came!"
Renamon swore she was going to wring its little neck if it didn't give any more helpful answers.
"What big black..." Then she checked herself and held her tongue. Of course! What other big black thing would go around and delete the trees and reduce everything to a black marsh full of death?
"The reaper?"
The fox whispered hoarsely as the feline nodded. Letting go of the gabumon, Renamon turned and drew a furious punch into the nearest tree. CRACK! The tree, no larger than a sapling of three years, broke into two and its top fell to the ground with a 'ka-shush!' Renamon drew back her paw slowly and flexed her knuckles. She chided herself for loosing her hold on her actions, even as the wrath against an extinct virus still pounded through her head. Something brushed against the sight of her leg and she almost kicked it. Looking down just in time to see large amber almond-shaped eyes staring up at her. The gabumon... She was surprised it was still here. Her charisma wasn't exactly appealing at this point in time.
"Try the mountains, lost warrior."
The young gabumon tugged at the fur on her leg, producing a slightly itchy sensation but otherwise tolerable. Renamon glanced down before bending slightly so as not to tower over the feline, at the back of her mind feeling a strange sense of respect for the small cat. Brave cat, she must've looked like a monster just now.
"Thank you gabumon, walk within beauty."
The gabumon smiled in a comforting sort of way then turned and disappeared with a leap into the bushes. Renamon stared wistfully at the spot where it had been as she straightened. That's right warrior, walk within beauty. The tribe used to say that. She recalled rather hazily her childhood, the shadow of other foxes as they towered over her form and ruffled her head. A heavy sense of nostalgia filled her heart.
"Walk within beauty as you grow up little fox!"
That was what they had said. A chuckled from the bushes broke her deep thoughts and she found herself fixated in a heavy stare at the ground, and the gabumon chuckling away somewhere in the bushes of the forest. What had she voiced her thoughts out? No wonder she looked silly enough. Swishing her tail, Renamon nodded slightly at where she sensed the gabumon to be. The little cat still there watching her awkward form.
"That's enough. I don't intend to look so stupid any longer."
She told it, her voice regaining her air of confidence and firmness as she turned on her heel and walked away gracefully in the direction of the mountains. Strange yet unseen, she could trust the gabumon. It was in its child-like face that she almost saw herself, or what she had been so many years back. The trust and simplicity of knowing and wanting to help out someone, even if that someone looked as furiously insane as she had been when she was in a bad mood. And 'bad' was an understatement. Indeed that gabumon would grow up to be a fine digimon one say. She hoped.
Well, well. Smart gabumon. The mountains eh? Why didn't she think of that even earlier. Yes if anything threatened the MoonFoxes far more than they could withstand, she had heard rumors of their secondary encampment on the other side of the cold mountains. Only those were rumors. Still, no harm trying. Not that she had anything to loose besides her life. The mountains... oh boy. The thought of the ice numbing her paws and tumbling off into an avalanche was getting more and more appealing to her by the minute.
With one last look at the disgusting marshes that had once been her home, the kitsune wheeled away and started for the mountains, her tail swaying from side to side behind her as she placed her feet firmly on the ground.
However, a pair of eerie glowing green eyes watched her leave. They stared at the golden fox then narrowed and disappeared.