Author's Notes: Just a minor note that Shadowgallantmon is more than power hungry. He practically has an addiction to chaos and destruction so hence, the little exclamation in the previous chapter. I'm also sure that I stated at one point or another that Megidramon consists of both Takato's anger and his primal instincts. But if I didn't say anything, then I apologize.
Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon in any form whatsoever. Bandai, Toei and ABC own the rights and all that stuff.
Ascension – V 3.2
The rookie Digimon gave a small squeak when she felt the life being hugged out of her but she had anticipated that reaction seeing as how she was going to have to leave her tamer to save Zhuqiaomon's life. Suzie cried as she held her partner closer to her body. Lopmon could barely speak due to the tamer hugging her so hard. "Please, Suzie. You have to let me do this. This is important." "No!!"
In the background, an argument was taking place. "Forget it!! I will not accept help from a human and a traitor Digimon!!" Baihumon gave an irritated sigh. "You were able to swallow your damn pride when you let Azulongmon's chosen and the tamers cross over into the Eastern Realm. What's wrong this time?"
Shibumi checked the monitor, provided for him by the Digi Gnomes, that monitored the phoenix's life signs. He had been able to request a few things from them since Azulongmon told him about the function that the Digi Gnomes serve. Unfortunately, the repairs required to reverse the degradation inside Zhuqiaomon were beyond even their capability so he could not ask for that. "If we're going to have a shot at saving Zhuqiaomon's life, we have to start soon!" Gennai gave a small sigh. "We know but we're talking about having a little girl give up someone close to her to save someone else she doesn't really know. That's a difficult choice to make."
"Suzie, try to think about the situation like this." Lopmon quickly remembered to when introductions were made and it was revealed that Shibumi was one of the key contributors to creating Digimon. "The other man is like a daddy to all of us Digimon. The big bird, turtle, beast and dragon are like the eldest children who have to care for the family when mommy and daddy are unable to do so. You told me yourself…once your mommy was sick and your daddy was away on a special trip. Your older brothers and sister took care of the family. In this case, the entire family consists of the Digimon living in four digital worlds. And they need the four Sovereigns to keep them safe. You wouldn't want the digital world to feel unsafe, no?" Suzie slowly whispered a 'no'.
"If I do this, then that means that the Sovereigns can protect the digital world from anything that's evil. Suzie…I won't be gone forever. Maybe we can meet again…it's possible that I can be reborn as a little baby back in Primary Village but it would be some time before that happens." Suzie gave a small sniffle as she looked at her partner. "Will you weally come back?" Now this caused Lopmon to become uncomfortable as the chances of her coming back are not favourable. But the Sovereigns would do whatever they could to bring her back to Suzie. Surely they can find a way.
"Not right away but the Sovereigns would try to help me come back. I don't know how they can do it but they'll find a way. So will you let me help Zhu…er, the big birdy?" There was a long and uncomfortable silence that followed. Then the little girl walked up with her Digimon in front of the four Sovereigns. "Pwease bwing her back soon." There were tears in her eyes as she spoke this.
Zhuqiaomon was stunned that both the human and her Digimon would want to do this. Ebonwumon bowed both of his heads. "We are forever in your debt, wee lass. You have our word that little Lopmon will come back soon." Baihumon looked at the phoenix. "I hope that you will remember this day…the day that a human saved your life along with a so-called traitor Digimon."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Just how on earth were we able to do that?" The rush of adrenaline had died down in Gallantmon as his senses slowly came back to him. GCM was still breathing heavily but gave the question some thought. "Perhaps this is the ultimate benefit of quantum bio-merging. The ability to use the full power of the Hazard." A blank look came from the other holy knight. "The symbol on Guilmon's chest?"
As the four flew over to see whether they had destroyed Daemon or not, Shadowgallantmon snorted. "That sucks!! Why can't we just have access to the full power of the Hazard in individual form?!?" GCM crossed his arms as he glared at the dark knight. "No individual entity should have access to that type of power. Not you…not Megidramon…not even myself or Gallantmon." "Are you saying that because of that saying that 'power corrupts', Casanova?"
"In a way…and why do you insist on calling me Casanova?" The dark knight just stared at the crimson knight as he had been asked 'why are you evil?'. "Gee, I don't really know. Maybe it's because of the formal way you speak, think and act? Especially when it comes to women!! You said that you would not harm a lady even if she were giving you a severe ass kicking!! Also, the Gallant part in the name we…share technically means ladies' man and you, Casanova, fit the description."
"But gallant also means brave as well. Perhaps that was what he was thinking when he created the original form…" They arrived at where Daemon was last seen but saw nothing. GCM frowned. "He's still out there…we would have been able to see some residual data patterns if he was killed." Shadowgallantmon grinned underneath his helmet. "Looks like demon hunting season has come upon us…okay, dragon breath. Sniff out the demon." This earned him a snarl of annoyance from Megidramon.
"If we're going after him again, then I should rendez-vous with Rika and the others to pick up Grani," stated Gallantmon. The crimson knight gave him a look. "You do realize that you can't graft with him since your individual data pattern is in a fragile state." Gallantmon nodded. "Yeah but at least I can have more speed and manoeuvrability in the air along with new attacks and increased attack power." After thinking about that for a moment, GCM agreed. "Point taken."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Why are you running? It's so pointless…" Sakuyamon flew at top speed in a random direction, hoping to find a haven to silence the voices. "JUST SHUT UP!!!" Imperialdramon was quite amazed at how much effort he had to put into keeping up with the shaman Digimon. He had changed back to his other form and was carrying all the Digidestined children. Justimon had decided to tag along for the ride and conserve energy.
"What do you think happened to her?" asked Yolei with concern evident in her voice. Justimon thought hard about how to approach the situation. "We can figure that out later. I'm more worried about what to do when we catch up to her. She looks so unstable. And it happened right after she received this new power."
Ken voiced his thoughts. "This could probably be related to Grani's disappearance. We haven't seen it since the battle." Cody narrowed his eyes before giving a frustrated sigh. "I just wish we knew more about Grani and what it's capable of doing. Gennai should have given us something when we were at his house."
"Even if we knew about the risks and everything, she would have still gone through with whatever we did. We were getting beaten by Reapermon and he wasn't even trying very hard. In the end, she's paying the price for obtaining a new power to bail us out." TK clenched his right fist. "I hate times like these…being helpless and unable to help those you care for." "We can all relate to that, TK," murmured Davis softly, not even noticing that he got the other boy's name right.
"I think she's slowing down!! It's about time too…I'm getting wiped out!!" Imperialdramon set himself down after going over the last hill overlooking a crystal lake. The shaman Digimon was sprawled out near the edge of the water, with the waves splashing her boots. Justimon ran over to her as soon as Imperialdramon let everybody down. He could still hear her breathing but the fact that she wasn't thrashing around when he was this close indicated that there was something very wrong. "Damn…I want to help you but how?"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
When she found herself back in the dreamscape representing her mind, she was sitting on a chair and dressed in her normal outfit. Two other females were with her. One looked exactly like her but wore a skull and crossbones jacket while the other one wore a traditional Japanese kimono. "Great…you're so weak that you won't even move when Mr. Perfect is in close proximity to you." "Well…she has only exhausted herself in an effort to keep us quiet."
The Digimon Queen gave a cold glare at the entity representing compassion. "Who asked you for your opinion? I don't even understand why you exist at all. You're the last thing she needed. Compassion is weakness and is what misguides judgment. How can you exist when she understands that basic concept?" Princess Sakuya placed a gentle hand on the other Rika's head. "I exist because she has accepted that compassion is important and can help guide her in places where you cannot. She understands when compassion is needed and when your cold attitude is preferable for the situation."
Rika just stared at her two doppelgangers before making a guess at who they were. "Princess Sakuya…you bound yourself to my life force, didn't you?" The other female nodded. Then the Digimon Queen blinked once at this revelation. "Wait just a minute!! You are supposed to represent compassion but now you reveal yourself to be Princess Sakuya as well?"
"I'm a fusion of both the soul of Princess Sakuya and the growing compassion that is slowly rising in your heart." The princess smiled gently. Rika turned to face her other counterpart. "And by the way you're acting, you're the Digimon Queen." A cold smirk was on the Digimon Queen's face. "At least some of your brain cells are still functioning."
"I don't understand this…I carried both of you throughout my life but I've never been truly able to talk to you, face to face like this! How…where's Renamon? I've got to make sure that she's okay!!" She wanted to get up from her chair and look around the surroundings. The Digimon Queen frowned. "Just what do you think you're doing? There's no way to determine whether Renamon is fine or not…" Rika just sat back down, more depressed than ever.
"You're breaking down over your partner! My God, what is wrong with you?!? When are you going to wake up to the fact that she's just a stepping stone to get you in a higher place in the world? Sure, you could say that coming into existence at all is pretty high by itself. But that's not good enough. The only way for the rest of the world to acknowledge your existence is to prove that you are the supreme tamer…" Princess Sakuya had a small look of confusion. "What do you mean coming into existence is high by itself?"
The other girl rolled her eyes. "You haven't figured it out yet? Think back to mom's last birthday. She was…how old? Twenty seven. And you were at the age of eleven. That means mom got pregnant when she was sixteen. By that age, she shouldn't have been thinking about having kids. But she was majorly head over heels for dad. If she just stopped for a moment and thought about what she was doing before jumping into bed right away, then she would have had her dear boyfriend use protection. So technically…you were an accident!!!" A look of horror went across Rika's face.
Sakuya blinked in surprise at the Digimon Queen's outburst. "I can't believe that you would simply accept the fact that her coming into existence was purely accidental." The Digimon Queen then gave a cynical laugh. "You are absolutely hilarious, did you know that? You actually believe that when mom and dad screwed like rabbits, the purpose of them having sex was to create her and us in the process? No…when they decided to have sex, they were just interested in pleasuring each other. The last thing on their minds was to have a child."
Rika shuddered slightly as she remembered having that train of thought less than a year ago when she still had that icy attitude. Sakuya thought about how to respond. "True but they probably had intentions to have a child later. The problem is that you are only presenting one aspect of the truth. Although the conception was an accident, they still decided to go through with the process when they could have done an abortion. Mother and father had truly loved her…although I cannot explain why father left after a few years. But I suppose it was because of that event when she created you to wear as a mask and hide her true personality. To avoid getting hurt again."
The Digimon Queen snorted. "But that's stupid. Hiding behind things to avoid getting hurt…pain is a part of life and you can't escape from it. You just have to deal with it and move on. And you can also try and ditch the whole 'love makes the world go round' philosophy because that is such an easy way to make a mess out of things. I mean…look at what happened with dad. I'm surprised he actually stuck around for this long but he finally woke up and realized that love is not enough to deal with reality. You have to face the fundamental fact. Life will become way too screwed up for the relationship with goggle head to keep going. God, why did you decide to take up this romance in the first place?"
She paused for a moment to let this sink in before continuing. "As pleasant as love looks, it has more than its share of thorns. There are divorces and separations going on each day, creating a lot of misery for a lot of people other than the two who had been romantically involved. Love can also generate so many negative aspects as well like jealousy, bitterness and even hatred." Rika thought about what her counterpart had said. "Renamon said that the rewards were far greater than the risk when pursuing love. So just what exactly do I have with Takato? Real love or a stupid crush?
Sakuya smiled gently. "I believe that you two share a powerful love. It feels like the bond that I had shared with my husband during our time together. We are fortunate that we have found our significant others." Eventually, the Digimon Queen got sick to her stomach hearing all of this. "You actually believed that Ninigi was actually a really great guy? I don't know who is worse…her or you."
"What would you know about my husband?" Rika was about to ask how the Digimon Queen knew about Ninigi and his relationship with Princess Sakuya but then she remembered how she eagerly dove into Japanese mythology to avoid shopping with her mother. "I know that he refused to marry your sister Iwanaga because she was unbelievably ugly. All the legends agree about that particular fact. This means he only cares about outer beauty and is shallow. And what about when he was suspicious that you weren't carrying his child when you were pregnant? Talk about a guy who's worse than dad…"
She easily remembered that moment when she promised him that she would burn the house when she gave birth to ensure that the babies were indeed his. "It is unethical for a man to have more than one wife. You have to take into account that Ninigi was the grandson of Amaterasu and was a divine being. He does not have any extensive knowledge about marriage and had insecurities." Rika blinked when she heard Sakuya mention that her husband was a divine being. "How did he become mortal?"
Sakuya thought about that for a moment. "Apparently my sister Iwanaga had something to do with it. My father believed that she represented immortality and long life and that I represented prosperity and that was why he asked Ninigi to marry us both. Perhaps it was that…or something else. I do not know. But this is why the emperors of Japan have always been mortal."
Then she gave a cold look to the Digimon Queen, who simply crossed her arms. "Say what you wish about me but do not use your wicked tongue to dishonour my husband." The other girl just gave a smirk. "Whatever." But the smirk vanished when she saw Sakuya give her an icy look which was just as cold as her own.
It was rather disturbing for Rika to see that the entity representing compassion had another side of her which was similar to the Digimon Queen. "Rika? Rika, can you hear me?" She blinked once as she recognized that voice. "Takato?" The Digimon Queen frowned. "What in the hell is goggle head doing here?"
And that wraps up another chapter. I had planned on doing more but then I decided to make a last minute revision to the chapter outline. Since reading week is next week for me, I should be able to get out another chapter, providing that I finish my essay.
See you on the other side.