Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or the idea of external souls. Hopefully you'd know that by now, so I could stop saying it every time.
neoKOS-MOS: Well, this chapter came about sooner than I expected, especially for the length of it. It's actually longer than the second one, the challenge chapter. –reviewers rejoice- But, I hope you like it all the same. They finally leave! And it's fun on the way.
Read and enjoy.
Journey
Rika watched over the next hour as the rest of the digidestined and their digimon filed in. Only Mimi, Joe, and Cody, who had been out of the country, weren't there by the time Adara decided to call them together to explain what was going to happen next. The redhead separated herself from Henry and went back over to find Davis. They all sat at the big desk in the middle of the red room, somehow finding enough chairs for everyone. The violet eyed girl sat next to Davis, Matt on her other side. Adara, Randy, and Nora walked into the interior of the wooden enclosure, only the boy sitting down. Along the outside, Sky and Wivrig lingered at the telescreens, keeping an eye on the happenings of the rest of the world.
Adara started it off. "I'm glad you're all here, safe and sound." She glanced over at Takato before going on. "Now, I know you've all had the information on the high level digimon we've asked you to help us fight. The reason those digimon were assigned to our surveillance is that they are the ones that are going to invade your worlds when the cycle hits us."
"Why didn't you tell us that before?" Matt asked.
"Well," she responded. "It's common knowledge to us, so it probably slipped my mind."
Randy grinned at that, but kept quiet.
"What Adara means is," Nora went on, "that when these three digimon are destroyed, your worlds will be pretty much safe. If you guys help us now, we can get them out of the picture and ensure the safety of your homes and families."
"We already decided that we're going to do this." Henry said from across the desk.
"Right, but we're still giving you the chance to back out if you want." Randy told him. "We don't want any of you to feel like we're forcing you into this." He gave a pointed look toward Jeri.
The girl smiled back and shrugged. "If Katzemon thinks he's ready, so am I."
He shrugged and looked to Adara for her to go on.
The dark haired girl glanced over the line of people. "Now, you all know that there are three digimon. That poses a problem, doesn't it? How do we split you up?"
"Well," Izzy looked up, "There's an ice type, a darkness type, and an electric type. I'm thinking you want an element advantage, if they're as strong as you say they are."
"Right." Nora moved over and sat on the edge of the desk, in a spot where no one's view was blocked. "So, we have a proposition for you."
Adara slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans. "Both Wivrig and I have fire type digimon, so we'll be leading the group against Hieldramon. The team I'm suggesting is Tai, Davis, Ken Rika, and Sora."
"Sounds good to me." Tai said, glancing around and getting nods from the rest of the team.
"Well, that's good." Randy leaned back in his chair. "I'll be leading the next team along with Sky against Nerezzamon. We were thinking it could be Izzy, Kari, Yolei, TK, and Henry."
Across the room, Rika saw Henry's eyes widen in surprise. "But, what about Suzie?"
"We're asking that you guys to split up."
The boy looked shocked for a moment, but then glanced over at his sister. The little girl looked blankly back at him, only a little sadness in her eyes.
"Don't worry, Henry. I have Lopmon to protect me," she whispered.
"But..."
"I'm a big girl. I'll be okay." Despite her happy words, the little girl's eyes fell to the table in front of her.
"Are you sure?" Randy asked. "Because if you're not, we'll rethink the team."
"No!" she said, standing up in her chair. "Henry will be okay on his own. He doesn't need me to be there."
The blonde ambassador smiled at this, but Rika's eyes were drawn to Henry. He was staring distantly into the table.
"Henry?" Randy asked, noticing.
He looked up, once again his old self. "We'll be okay apart. I'm assuming the rest of us will be fighting Zeismon?"
"Yeah." Nora stretched her legs. "I'll be leading that group. We might not have as much of an elemental advantage, but we'll have an extra fighter." She cast her gaze toward Ai and Mako.
"That sounds good." Matt nodded, looking around the table one last time. Everyone else seemed to agree.
As the meeting broke up, Rika looked over at Davis. "I'm gonna go talk to Henry."
The cinnamon haired boy frowned. "Okay."
"Davis, don't be jealous," she whispered. "I just need to talk to him before we split up. After that, I'm all yours."
He blushed, but grinned at her.
Rika weaved her way through the throng of people to find Henry kneeling in front of his sister. She walked up to them.
"You're sure, Suzie? If you wanna change it, I'm sure Randy won't mind."
"No!" She shook her head violently. "I'll be fine Henry. I'm a big girl."
Lopmon stood silently at her side, looking up at her partner. "We'll be okay. I promise I'll protect her with my life. Just make sure you're okay, too."
The boy sighed and nodded. "Okay." He stood up again and the little girl drifted away to Jeri.
Rika glanced over at him. "Henry, what's up?"
His eyes lifted up to hers. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean," the girl answered.
He sighed and leaned against the wall. "I'm worried that Suzie will get hurt while I'm not there to protect her."
The redhead looked at him. "I think it's something more than that."
Henry glanced off across the room. "She's worried about me," he whispered, and after a long moment, added, "for some reason."
Rika moved over to lean against the wall next to him, following his gaze. "And why is that?"
The boy looked over at her, almost an angry expression on his face. "It's nothing, okay. I'm not going to tell you."
Taken aback, she stepped away from him a little. "What's that all about? I'm just trying to help you."
"Yeah, whatever," he muttered stiffly. "Nobody can help. Just leave me alone, Rika."
She stared after him as he trudged away from her, over to where his digimon was talking with Guilmon. Pausing for a moment, the girl sighed and walked back over to Davis, who was sitting on the desk and talking with his sister.
"Hey, what happened?" he asked as she came over.
The girl shook her head. "I don't know. He's acting weird."
Before she could explain further, there was a loud beeping sound that echoed from one of the computer consoles. Everyone looked up and an older boy walked out of the elevator room. At his side was a flaming red Meramon. Adara made her way over to shake the newcomer's hand.
"Hi, Ivan. Thanks for coming."
"You're welcome. I'll take good care of your base while your gone. Just make sure you guys come back."
The girl nodded with a smile and then turned back to everyone else. "Okay guys, we're ready to go. Just come this way and we'll be on our way."
Ivan and his digimon moved over to the computers and the rest of them crowded over to the door. Rika grabbed Davis's hand and shoved her way to the opening first. She followed Adara through the rip that Ivan had left, and onto the elevator. Everyone filed on after and they rode down to the platform below. There was a train waiting for them, and they all found a seat. Rika grabbed a window seat and Davis sat down next to her.
"I'm so excited." He grinned as they gently took off from the platform. "I'm glad you're coming with, too."
The violet eyed girl smiled back at him and then set her head against the energy glass window, closing her eyes. "I'm so tired. I think the adrenaline rush of my fight with Devidramon finally wore off."
Davis yawned too, slumping down in his seat so he could rest is head against the back of it. "Me too. It's late in my world, and today's been crazy enough anyway."
The girl nodded. "How long are we gonna be on this train?"
"I don't know," he whispered sleepily. "It's never very long, anyway."
She nodded again, already feeling her mind trying to drift off into sleep.
-
She was pulled awake again as the train slid to a slow stop. Her eyes snapped open and she looked over to see Adara's hand on her shoulder. The older girl smiled at her.
"How long was I asleep?"
"Not long," she answered. "We'll be able to sleep once we get to the digital world. Almost everyone else fell asleep too."
Rika glanced around behind her and saw that it was true. Kazu had sprawled out over two seats, and Jeri was sleeping with her head resting on Takato's shoulder. Matt drowsed gracefully, sitting up next to his brother. Only Kari and Ai were still awake, the older girl staring out the window as Izzy slept in the chair next to hers. Ai held a sleeping Impmon in her arms.
"Help me wake everybody up?" Adara asked in a whisper.
The violet eyed girl smiled and nodded.
They went about the process of waking the others up and then everyone filed sleepily out of the train. The energy platform they came out onto was different, and Rika could feel it through the soles of her feet. The vibration was different, as was the lighter pitch to its humming. And it was a blue-purple color, different from the usually deep cobalt blue.
"What's wrong with the platform?" Takato asked, staring down between his feet.
"It's a different color because it's linked to the Core." Randy explained. "We can only cut into in from one of these purple platforms, or a special area created inside of MIRROR."
"There's no turning back now." Sky said, stepping forward into the center. He pulled out his ghost-black digivice and cut through the air.
Slowly, everyone went through into the digital world. Rika stepped through and looked around. She swallowed a feeling of familiarity. It looked a lot like the digital world she had visited with the rest of the Tamers the first time they had ventured into it. A cold dry wind blew across the bleak landscape, throwing dust into her face. The ground was cracked with thirst, jaggedly sharp points poking up from the deep chasm that opened up a few meters away from the window. The wind blew again, howling through the torn ground. Jagged cliffs also rose up in the distance, deep obsidian black with deathlike bird digimon spiraling above them.
"Um, wow." Takato muttered as he took in the scene.
"It's a pretty dead place." Randy acknowledged, looking around as well. "But we're safe here." He turned around and pointed to a dusty white building situated behind them.
Sky closed up the rip and Adara led the group off toward the building. Their feet left footprints in the shifting dust as they approached. The dark haired girl stopped in front of the tightly locked door and held her digivice up to an analyzer port. A shining of pale blue energy flew out to engulf the red digivice before shutting off with a quiet beep.
The door hissed and then slid upward into the ceiling, revealing a dark interior. Momentarily, soft fluorescent lights blinked on to reveal a large room. As they filed inside, Rika saw that it had two of the same kind of computer consoles. Deeper in the room there were rows of beds made up in while linen.
The door snapped closed behind them and Adara sighed, seating herself in one of the console chairs. "I'll sign us in for the night. The rest of you can get some sleep."
Rika sighed in the warmer air, feeling the tiredness seep back into her. Everyone started drifting toward the beds, and the violet eyed girl headed for one farthest from the door. She kicked off her shoes and set her bag down on the floor before sitting down to claim it as her own. Jeri and Sora came over as well, the rest of the girls following and marking that half of the room as their own. The redhead watched Davis collapse on one of the cots near the computers. She shrugged and rolled over so her back was to the boys' side. The lights dimmed down before Adara made her way over and took the bed across from Rika's. In the dark, she felt her eyes close as she drifted back to sleep.
-
The alarm woke her up. She groaned and turned over, cramming the pillow over her head. It went on for another minute before shutting itself off. Rika sighed and tried to go back to sleep. She was so tired.
"Come on, Rika. You have to get up." Nora's voice came from the edge of the bed next to her ear.
After a moment, the violet eyed girl yielded and sat up. She rubbed her eyes and then looked around. Most of the others were still asleep, despite the alarm.
Already dressed in all green, Nora motioned toward another door set in the back wall. "There's showers through there. It'll probably be the last one you take in a while."
Nodding, the younger girl pushed herself up and grabbed a fresh pair of clothes, something warm for the cold air outside. Then she went to take that shower. Inside the bathroom, there were six open showers, water pooling in the bottom of all but one. Yawning, Rika stuffed her clothes on the shelf outside the dry one and went inside to wash herself off, pulling the shower curtain behind her. Torey even let the warm water splash into his fur, preparing himself for a long time of dirt and grime. When he was finally tired of the water, the lynx seated himself in the corner and went about the process of licking himself dry.
When Rika was done, fully dressed and now awake, she left the bathroom and went back into the first room. Adara and Randy were both sitting at one of the computers, while Nora stood at one of the shaded windows, Delphiniumon's rookie form of Rhyzomon clutched in her arms. Scooping up her soul, Rika went over to stand next to the green haired girl.
Rhyzomon, a small plant digimon with four short legs and a long muscular body, looked over at her, the petal frill around her neck brushing lightly against Nora's shirt. "Are you ready for all this, Rika?"
The girl blinked, looking out through the window at the bleak landscape beyond. "Yes. It's something we have to do."
"It'll be harder on you than the others." The green clad girl whispered, watching as Matt and Sky passed the window on their way back inside. "You have more responsibility as a seer."
"I have more responsibility as a seer anyway. It doesn't only apply to this."
Nora nodded and sighed, setting the floral lizard on the ground as the two boys entered through the door. "Can I ask if you've seen anything lately?"
The redhead hugged Torey tighter to her chest. "No. I haven't seen anything other than the dream I had about Hieldramon."
"You dreamt about him?" The other girl turned to look at her.
Rika nodded. "Yeah. Why? Is that strange?"
Nora shook her head. "What happened? Anything worth noting?"
"No." Torey replied. "It was just telling us that he was the one we were going to be fighting."
The violet eyed girl frowned, looking down at the lynx. "Really? Why didn't you tell me that?"
"You never asked," he replied with a grin.
"Okay, wake up TK." Behind them, Matt plunked himself down on his brother's bed and beat him awake with a pillow.
Slowly, everyone else woke up and took their final shower. Even the younger kids did, after some prodding from Sora and their digimon. Afterward, they all came together outside the building for the last of their good byes. Rika found herself hugging Jeri tightly. The two girls pulled apart and she saw tears rimming the brunette's soft eyes.
"It'll be okay, Jeri." She said, setting a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"I know. Just be careful, Rika."
The violet eyed girl smiled. "You too."
She moved on to Takato and winced as he attacked her in a hug. "Be careful, Rika. I'll miss you."
She struggled to pull away, but he still held her tightly. "Yeah. You too, Takato. Could you please stop crushing me?" she muttered though clenched teeth.
He let go of her and took a step back. "Sorry."
"Whatever," she responded with a casual shrug. "Just take care of Jeri."
The gogglehead blushed and nodded before moving on. Rika tried to kindly brushed off Kazu before he could try to hug her, but he didn't seem to take her hint, so she glared at him instead. Kenta nervously said good bye to her, grinding his toe into the dust the whole time. The girl said good bye to Ai and Mako, the both of them hugging her at the same time before she could stop them. Suzie was the same way. And last was Henry. They both of them stood silent across from each other before Rika stepped forward and threw her arms around him.
"I'll miss you," she whispered. "Don't do anything stupid."
He bit his lip. "Sorry I was so mean before."
"It's okay," she replied, pulling back and looking him in the eye. "You can tell me about it when we meet up again."
"Maybe," he said quietly. "Take care of yourself, Rika. I'll miss you too."
And, with that, she went about saying the same to the others. When she finally finished, she stood next to Davis and watched as the rest of the group finished up. Her eyes were drawn off to the side, where Henry knelt in front of Suzie, the two siblings hugging each other for the last time. And, as the boy pulled away, his sister handed something to him that seemed to strike him.
"Ready, guys?" Sora asked, clapping a hand on Rika's shoulder and snapping the girl's attention back to her own group.
The others had drifted over as well, though Adara was still talking with the other MIRROR kids off to the side. Tai stood watching his sister and her boyfriend, and Ken was next to Davis, Yolei still hugging him tightly. As Wivrig marched over, the plum haired girl finally split off to her own group. Jun stood up from where she had been sitting on a boulder.
"I hope you're all ready for this," the katrant said, her digimon shifting her eight feet restlessly as they waited for Adara to grab her bag and come over.
"All right," the dark haired girl sighed, finally stepping into the misshapen circle that had developed within the group. "We're ready to go." With one last wave to the others, she led them off over the rough terrain.
-
They had been walking for a long time. The ground was hard and uneven, crunching underfoot as she stepped down on the jagged edges of the parched earth. It seemed as if it should have been unbearably hot, but she wrapped her arms around herself at the brisk wind that had picked up in the last few minutes. As they approached the mountains in the distance, dust swirled through the air, obscuring the peaks in a brownish fog. The girl looked over to her side. On the horizon, she could just make out the black specks of another third of the digidestined, walking in a different direction toward a different goal. She sighed.
"You okay?" Davis asked, glancing over at her as he shifted the bookbag on his shoulder.
The girl nodded, blinking more dust out of her eyes. Sora looked over as well, the older girl holding Yokomon to her chest as the little creature couldn't make her way over the jagged ground. Tai and Agumon were far ahead, the two of them keeping good pace with Adara and Cougarmon and walking beside them. Somewhere in between those four and the rest of them, Wivrig and Ivosmon scampered along the ground in unison, both squeaking and whistling to each other in some kind of strange language. Ken walked silently at Davis's side, his eyes distant as Wormmon slept in his arms. In the back, Jun walked alone with Demiveemon in her arms. Renamon had dropped back beside the girl to keep an eye on her.
Rika squinted up at the sky. "Do you think it'll get colder when the sun goes down, because I'm cold as it is."
"It probably will." Sora replied. "And I know what you mean. I'm cold too."
"I don't understand why I'm with this group." Ken suddenly said out of nowhere. "Wormmon doesn't have any fire forms."
"It's because I need you for Veemon to reach Paildramon." Davis answered, glancing over at his friend.
"Yeah, but you'll be using Flamedramon. So, where does that leave me?"
Rika shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you should ask Wivrig," she added, peering ahead at the alien. She had stopped and was waiting for them to catch up.
They walked on in silence until they had caught up with the katrant and her digimon. Ivosmon grinned up at them with her vulpine smile and then scurried ahead to Tai and Adara.
Wivrig's one eye looked up at them as they stopped next to her. "Feeling tired?"
Sora shook her head. "I'm not tired. Only my feet from walking over this uneven ground."
The katrant bobbed her eye in agreement. "Me too. I think we should hitch a ride for a while to rest our feet."
"Hitch a ride?" Davis asked, looking down at her.
"Well, not so much find one as make one. Ivosmon said that it would be okay if some of you rode on her back in ultimate form, and maybe some of your digimon wouldn't mind carrying someone. This first leg of the journey is a hard one, and if we speed it up, I think we can reach Death Mountain Village by sundown. Then we won't have to camp out on the Javelin Plains tonight."
"Death Mountain Village?" Davis asked, looking uncomfortable. "Javelin Plains?"
"That's what this place is called," she answered. "And the village is only called that because it's near the mountain. Most of the digimon who live there aren't out to kill you."
"Most?" Jun asked, finally catching up with the group and the conversation. They started walking again.
"Hey, Renamon, do you think you could carry some of us as Kyuubimon?" Rika inquired, looking up at her partner now that she had caught up.
"I feel strong enough," the fox informed her quietly.
As soon as they had caught up with Adara and Tai, Wivrig discussed the idea with the dark haired girl, and they stopped for a moment so the digimon could change form.
Rika shuffled through her deck and miraculously found a blue card. Swiping it through her digivice, Renamon was engulfed in a sphere of blue energy before returning to the field in her champion form. Davis also pulled out his digivice, letting Demiveemon jump two levels to Raidramon.
Ivosmon's digivolution to Scorsamon was a strange one. Now in ultimate form, the little fox had lost most of her vulpine characteristics, taking on the body of a sand scorpion. Her carapace was a deep umber brown that glinted in the foggy sunlight. Six thin legs touched the ground in sharp points, while the other two were lifted off the ground and armed in two thin but powerful pinchers. Her sleek wolf-like head was furred in a color the same as her shell, long ears accenting a long snout and bright green eyes. Above her back, a powerful segmented tail arched to end in a cruelly sharp spine of a bright warning scarlet.
Wivrig jumped up on her digimon's back, the creature only slightly smaller than Raidramon. Agumon returned to Koromon and Tai brought him up to the sand scorpion's back, Adara jumping up behind him. As Cougarmon took to the air, Rika and Davis both mounted their own digimon.
Jun, with her hands in her pockets, looked up at both of them. "So, who do I go with?"
"Um..." Davis glanced between his sister and Ken, not sure.
"You can ride with me, Jun." Rika responded, Kyuubimon kneeling down slightly to help the older girl onto her back.
As Jun settled herself behind the violet eyed girl, the large fox took off, leaving the boys in the dust as she raced to catch up with Scorsamon.
"Thanks for taking me." The older girl shouted over the rush of wind.
"Why?" Rika asked over her shoulder. "You don't want to talk to your brother?"
After a second, she answered. "No. I wouldn't know what to say to him."
The redhead hugged Torey closer to her chest and squinted ahead through the dust. She still couldn't see anything. "I have a question for you. Did you bring any of the drugs with?"
She felt Jun go stiff behind her, and took it as a yes. "I had to, Rika. I can't go without them."
"How much did you bring?"
"There was a long pause before the other girl answered quietly. "Everything I had. It wasn't much, though."
"Jun."
"Just a bag of marijuana and a little crack."
"Jun, you should leave it all behind," she said, turning to look over her shoulder at the girl.
"But I can't. I..."
"You need it, right?" the violet haired girl turned back to look ahead of herself. "You're addicted."
"I can't just quit cold turkey. I've tried. It's impossible." There was a desperate tone to her voice.
"Have you tried it when there's no possible temptation to restart again?" Rika again looked over her shoulder to catch Jun's eye, driving the point home.
The older girl stared at her for a moment before dropping her eyes away. "No. Mark always ruined it."
She nodded and turned to face forward again, letting Jun think it through in silence.
-
The three digimon trotted side by side as they approached the village, the sun already beginning to go down. From Kyuubimon's back, Rika eyed the pot-shaped buildings with thatched grass roofs. Even along the outskirts, she could see digimon shuffling about. The base of the mountain on the other side of the village was covered with a patchwork of different colors, each a different kind of food being grown for the population. As they reached the first of the deep brown houses, Scorsamon slowed to a stop and Adara jumped off her back. Kyuubimon and Raidramon stopped too, and the three large digimon reverted to their smaller forms.
Rika followed the others through the dirt-road streets, her shoes kicking up more dust to add to the permanent cloud that billowed around their ankles. The resident digimon of the village soon realized that there where humans in their midst, and the group got their fair share of stares, not all of them friendly or innocently curious. An Ogremon thumped his giant club in one massive hand, eyeing Adara ominously. The dark haired girl just shifted the strap of her red tank top and glared back at him, almost egging on an attack of some kind.
They passed farther into the city unharmed. It was bustling busily despite the low position of the sun on the horizon, digimon everywhere bartering and making their way through the crowded streets. Rika watched Jun in the center of the group, the older girl hugging herself tightly since she had no digimon to hold. Suddenly, something slimy and prehensile wrapped around the redhead's ankle, tripping her up. A sprinkling of diamond shards pinned the Numemon to the ground even before Rika regained her footing.
That simple motion seemed to trigger something in the crowd. As if they had been looking for some reason to attack the humans in their midst, a Devimon and two Phantomon rushed in toward the group. Instantly, Cougarmon and Ivosmon sprung into action.
The cat notched an arrow to his bow and loosed it in the devil's direction. The rookie scorpion puffed up her body in a glow of fiery heat and sent it flooding over the two ghosts. A moment later, Veemon landed a sickening headbutt in Devimon's stomach, sending the black digimon flying into the crowd again. Another hail of glass shards prickled from the Phantomon before they too fled from the scene. Giving the crowd a good stare down, Adara turned and led the way on deeper into the village.
This time, Rika watched where she was going and what was going on around her. She saw the death-thin wolf digimon lay eyes on her before he approached to fully catch her attention.
"What do you want?" she asked the Fangmon warningly.
He lowered his head in submission to her before speaking. "Do you require shelter for the night? I can lead you to a safe place it you so wish this humble servant to do so, Madame Seer."
Thrown off guard, Rika paused, looking over to Adara. She received a nod, so she turned back to the wolf. "Lead us there."
The eight of them and their digimon followed the Fangmon through side streets and along crowded main roads before he came to a stop outside a large building. It was the same rust brown color as the other buildings, and the same squareish shape that had developed in the architecture as they walked father into the village. Outside, a large purple sign was scrawled in binary and another digimon language. The Fangmon led the way inside, his mangy coat and dirty leg bindings standing out in the neat cleanliness of the interior.
It was a large room that they entered, with the ceiling arching up above them for almost ten feet. Rika noticed that the walls were painted a deep inviting red with bright yellow trimming as Adara stepped up to the oval shaped desk in the center of the room.
"We'd like two rooms," she told the Tapirmon behind the desk, holding up two fingers to emphasize her statement.
The ghost mammal nodded and turned around, searching around through a jumbled board of keys tacked to a corkboard. After a moment, he pulled off two and set them on the counter in front of Adara's silver ringed fingers.
"That will be sixty digidollars," he told her with timid authority.
The girl nodded and took out her digivice, holding it out to him, but not inviting him to take it. The tapir produced a reader device and transferred the credits from the digivice into the hotel's account.
"Fangmon will show you to your rooms," he informed them before turning away to tend to a stack of paperwork.
The sickly red wolf stood from where he had been seated next to the desk and stalked off across the room, making sure that they were following. They climbed two flights of stairs before he stopped in front of a door, text in the same two languages printed into the mahogany wood.
"This room and the one across the hall are yours," he informed them. "I hope you enjoy your stay at Death Oasis."
As the digimon turned to go, Adara handed Rika a digidollar, motioning for her to tip him.
"Fangmon," the violet eyed girl called out, watching him stop and look back. She held it out to him. "Thank you for your help."
The shaggy creature's eyes lit up slightly, and he nodded his gratitude. "Thank you, Madame Seer. I will inform no one of your presence here." The wolf took the money in his mouth and stalked back down the hallway, leaving them alone.
"Well," Adara sighed. "It looks like you made a good impression there, Rika. Good night boys." She waved to the three of them before pushing open the door to the first room.
The other four girls filed in after, their eyes happily greeted with four beds and a clean bathroom. Rika dropped her stuff on the floor next to one of the beds and collapsed down, tired.
"What a long day." Sora whispered to herself in the next bed over. "I haven't been this tired since the last time I was stuck in the digital world."
Adara, still standing, smiled. "Well, we're all really tired, but I do recommend that we keep watch during the night."
Rika sighed, but was silenced as Renamon spoke up. "I will watch first. You need not waste sleep. I and the rest of the digimon can guard you."
"She's right." Cougarmon muttered from where he was already curled up in the corner.
Wivrig yawned widely, displaying a kind array of molars and long canines. "I like that idea," the katrant said as she curled up on the large padded rug on the floor.
"Okay. Then I'm gonna get some sleep." Adara added, sitting down and picking through her bag.
The girls changed into their pajamas in exhausted silence, and Ivosmon hit the lights as they slid under the fresh smelling covers. Rika's eyes closed, but there was still something on her mind.
"How did he know I was a seer?" She asked in the darkness.
"Your eyes." Sora whispered to her.
"Will they all know what I am? None of the other digimon ever called me that before."
"They might," Wivrig breathed from the floor. "You'll have to be careful."
"But how do they all know?"
"The Core is a different place than you're used to. Word of things the Entity wants spread fast." Adara's tired voice was loud in the relative silence, only the sound of the night rush drifting through the closed window.
"Will we be okay?" Jun asked, the sound of shifting blankets coming from her direction.
"Of course." Rika assured her, turning over and hugging Torey to her chest to get comfortable.
"Good night, guys." Sora whispered again.
"Good night," they all responded as Rika felt herself drift off to sleep.
neoKOS-MOS: Well, that was a long and interesting chapter. Hope it was full of surprises and all that jazz. Next chapter is the one I've been excited about for a long time. And it'll definitely be different. And now, in true SK fashion, we'll respond at the end.
Dark Qiviut: Hey there, DQ. Thanks for the advice. I kept wondering if I should have capitalized any of them. Oh, and I tried to conform to the dialogue standard on your profile for this chapter. Is that better?
Ha. I knew that someone would pick up on the Mrs. Pretty Pants allusion. I'm trying to show that Suzie's matured a little, and now she's the one taking care of Ai and Mako. And the reference to Mrs. Kamiya's cooking was one that I even cracked up while writing.
SalimaLiAkiyama: Thanks for he kind words. I hope this was fast enough for you. It was faster than I expected.
ApricotKisses: Oh my. I was giggling when I saw that you were back. It's okay that you're late. I know how it is to get hung up on things, especially school. I'm glad you like this little thing so much. Can you put your finger on why?
The Kari/Davis scene was something I was careful about. Didn't want either of them to come out looking stupid or mean. Glad you like it. I did like that line too. –giggling at the memory- I'll respond to the rest of the review via e-mail.
Well, thanks for stopping by. Reviews are cherished as always.