Ruki: What am I doing back here again?

CCoD: Because Takuya's busy reformatting, I think.

Ruki: Reformatting?

CCoD: My partner hatched in Primary Village and decided some revenge was in order.

Ruki: Where is he now?

CCoD: Getting us two pizzas and a bottle of root beer. Extra pepperoni, just how you asked for it.

Ruki: Oh yeah, that's why I'm sitting here doing your disclaimers! CCoD, formerly Lucemon's Tamer (He still has the 'mon, so don't cross him unless you're me!), doesn't own Digimon and will buy it as soon as he gets the money. He does own embedded programs in Digicores other than the X-Antibody and Shining Evolution/Catalyst. You can use the idea, just give him credit.

Digimon Compiled

Chapter 3: Runaway

A Digimon fight had been held while she'd written an essay on the Revolutionary War and its impact. Reina was still just getting that through her head as Yuki led her along Valley Str, named so because it was at the very bottom of the huge hill that took up most of town. If she had gone past Baker and taken Harvard up that hill, she would have gotten home. Instead she was following the high-school boy Yuki she'd just met and his partner Patamon down Baker to go find the local supreme Digimon expert. Karma obviously worked in strange ways.

"- combined our attacks and blew that guy to pieces!" Plotmon was telling her the story of the fight. The inverted color cat/puppy Digimon thought it was really cool. So when it became evident her Tamer wasn't listening she sneered and took to jumping through trees alongside the others.

Memorial Park was on the group's right, summer was in full swing on a perfect end of June day, and they were going to find a Digimon expert. God forbid, Reina thought, that they should do something fun instead of playing cards. OK, she admitted to herself, so the real ones were pretty cool, but what could little pieces of cardboard put out by a money-hungry corporation to be bought by fad-hungry kids have to do with that?

Yuki turned his head as he walked lazily up the street. The air was stuffy today and it made Yuki slightly dazed. As he looked around he saw a boy a year younger than him, or at least he looked like a ninth-grader for some reason, running by with little breath left in him.

"Come -pant- back here -pant- you!" he huffed out before keeling over and resting face-down on the cement. Yuki almost recognized him, but nobody he knew wore goggles on their forehead. Especially these goggles, which had a small distance of strap between lenses, silver-looking, perfectly circular rims and blue reflective lenses. Any kid who wore these in high school would be pushed around for "thinking he's the leader".

Yuki turned his head and spotted a large dog running across the sidewalk in the distance, now turning the corner onto Valley Street. It obviously belonged to the collapsed boy. It was also, for some reason, blue.

Yuki hoped the boy would get his dog back.

"Maybe I should wear another color in the summer? Black is kind of heat-absorbing," he thought...

Plotmon rejoined the others as they walked under some train-tracks, around the corner and onto Maplewood Ave proper, the street that ran up a very slight hill through the town center. They walked half a block up, and stopped at a shop. Reina stared in.

"I love this place! I never knew they did Digimon stuff!" She was practically doing a jig as the four walked into a store that sold random neat toys, doodads, and collectibles, including gaming cards apparently. It was small, only three rooms in total, but they were packed to the brim. Patamon immediately went into plushie mode and motioned to Plotmon to do the same. The red-haired girl picked up her partner, seeing it shoot the other Digimon a final scowl before pretending to be inanimate.

Yuki walked up and spoke to the woman who manned the counter.

"Have you seen Jeice Corinado today?"

"You mean that kid who holds the Digimon clinics and all? He was here a while ago, then he left."

"Do you know where he went?"

"Yeah, he saw some friend of his run off and chased after. Nearly dropped his goggles too."

"GOGGLES?"

"Yes, he had these silver rimmed blue goggles." Yuki face-faulted.

"OK, thanks."

How could he have not connected the two! The outfit, the laptop carrying case on his back, hell, the goggles. And that dog! It must have been a Digimon, it must have! Which would make Jeice... another Tamer. He motioned to Reina and ran the hell out of there and down back towards the park. He looked at his D-Arc and noticed that it did seem to be picking up another Digimon in the area. Why did Jeice have to do this today? As he ran Yuki wondered how many more sticks of antiperspirant he should have worn that day.

-

"Damn it DORUmon, why are you running!" came a yell from the distance. DORUmon kept running. He couldn't be caught. He couldn't be the 'partner' of a human, not again. He ducked out from the shade of some trees and struck across the huge grass field with a diamond of sand over to one end making toward an abandoned building. He could hide there for a while and make some kind of a plan.

Then he noticed a group of humans on the path he was rushing towards. They were hunting for him too, he was sure of it. There was a human boy and a girl and they each had their own Digimon. Those complete fools, thought the blue Child, don't they know what humans can do to you? One of the humans even had his Digivice out. The Digimon changed his direction, going straight through the sand diamond and into the tangle of metal, plastic and wood that he would know as a playground if he were human. His large blue and white haired feet made surprisingly little noise as he slipped out of view underneath a wooden triangular prism.

He saw the group of humans run into the playground and look around, dumbfounded. They were tall enough that they never thought to look under the wooden triangles, which were obviously for climbing over, even DORUmon knew that. They waited for the other one to get there. He did. The boy in the black spoke to him.

"Why's your Digimon running from you?" The goggleheaded boy responded:

"You're asking me?"

That kid was pretending he didn't know, but DORUmon knew what he'd been planning... Heck, he was even telling a modified version to the other human now.

That morning Jeice had come to where he kept DORUmon, his garage and opened the door, carrying his Digivice and a large, folded metal apparatus with rubber grips on one part and two wheels on opposite ends. The Digimon knew what to do immediately. He wasn't going to let this one knock him out and take him to the building with the men in white coats and goggles.

"METAL CANNON!" His newest 'partner' toppled backwards with the wind knocked out of him as a lone blue creature ran off into a foreign and hostile world...

Jeice had chased DORUmon until he could get him to come to the Digimon clinic, but he'd run off again when he didn't meet any other Digimon.

And that about got up to the present. Yuki was looking at Patamon wondering what to do, but gawked to Reina when she spoke.

"Plotmon, can you tell where he is?"

"Why should I be able to sense him? Because I'm a Digimon? Actually, he's inside that triangle-thing there."

"DORUmon keeps on running away right? He's paranoid! Well I say that we force him out of there so we can talk to him. Plotmon, attack, but try not to go to hard on him."

Patamon stood wide-eyed staring at the female Tamer, but after a moment the two Digimon rushed in, attacking at ¾ strength so as to not hurt the hiding dragon-mammal too badly.

"Boom Bubble... POW!"

"Puppy Howling!"

DORUmon had known it and now he was seeing it. First it was hit him with a metal thing, now attack him with two other Digimon. He tried to fight back, but was too far into a corner. He tried to run, but only reached the open space of the playground. The rage of his mistreatment and murder built, and he felt the crystal on his head begin to burn with an eerie red light that reflected off a wooden column. He ran a short distance before being engulfed in blood-red light.

"DORUmon evolve to... Death-X DORUgamon!" The newly formed Adult Digimon flew above an attack with a mighty flap of his dark purple dragon wings and countered with his own, his eyes glowing blood red.

"Metal Cast! No more shall I be the doll, puppet or battering toy of any human. I will return home to the Digital World and any human that tries to hinder me shall die!"

The red-haired Tamer caught a card thrown by her companion.

"Card Slash... Evolution, activate!"

"Card Slash... Agumon's Baby Flame, activate!"

"Patamon evolve to... Angemon!"

"Baby Flame!"

"Heaven's Knuckle!"

Both attacks weakened the Death-X monster significantly, but not enough to bring it out of the air. Angemon flew up above it dive-bombed a tackle while Plotmon hit from below. Their combined force slammed the creature to the ground with a mighty crack of metal and bone, kicking up a cloud of sand in every direction.

Reina ran straight in to contain the menace once and for all with another borrowed card from her new friend.

"Card Slash... Power, activate! Finish the job, Plotmon!"

"WAIT!" Jeice, almost forgotten by both others in his silence, had strapped on his goggles and was now standing between Plotmon and Death-X DORUgamon in a traditional defensive pose with arms extended to his sides. "I can't let you kill DORUmon. DORU, I don't know why you seem to hate me and refuse to trust me, but I'm not going to make you my puppet or hurt you or anything. I just want to be your friend. Now why'd you run away this morning?"

The metal-covered creature howled in anger at this question, though its eyes ceased to glow.

"I ran for the obvious reason, you had come to beat me with that folded metal thing!"

"DORUmon," insisted Jeice, "That was a scooter. You ride on it and have fun. I wasn't going to hurt you at all. It just looks weird to you because you're from the Digital World. Now, please, can't we be friends?" His Digivice started to glow.

"How can I trust you? Every other human has lied to me. The latest offense was that one with the Plotmon." The Digimon was shaking and bits of data were evaporating from it. It would either devolve or die very, very soon.

Jeice took his Digivice and pointed the screen at the undead form of his Digimon.

"This is how." The Digivice's beam healed DORUgamon's wounds and returned him to DORUmon. The blue Digimon hobbled over to his Tamer and extended a hand-thing.

"Alright, friends." Jeice kneeled down to shake hands with the panting Digimon that was again his partner.

Now that he and DORUmon had made peace, Jeice stood, removed his goggles and glared daggers at the other four.

"Don't. Come. Near. Us. Again. Got it? YOU NEARLY KILLED DORUMON. GET OUT OF MY SIGHT AND OUT OF HIS!"

CCoD: He's pissed off.

Ruki: I can see why.

Ruki munches pizza.

Lucemon: PIZZA!

CCoD: I can see why the guys from Frontier wanted to get rid of him.

Ruki: Why?

CCoD: Sees a human with something and wants it. Luce sit!

Lucemon sits.

CCoD: Good Digimon! Pepperoni!

CCoD drinks some root beer.

CCoD: So if you want to find out what'll happen to our three intrepid heroes, you'll have to review this chapter. Then, you'll have to read the next chapter of Digimon Compiled!

Ruki: Who're you talking to?

CCoD: The reader.