8. A Blink Sends It Away
Tailmon threw up again.
Her vision blurred and wavered as the feeling continued to coarse through her, thick and watery. She made no sound, knowing better than to admit the pain in case someone was watching and could report it. She hadn't eaten much, only fruit that Wizarmon had sampled first and proven wasn't poisonous. Perhaps it was poisonous to cats. She didn't know, but she knew she had woken up to painful cramps that made her think she was bleeding below. And she wasn't, she was sure of that. She couldn't do anything about it if she was anyway. She was a giant talking cat with floppy ears, no human doctor would know what to do.
She crawled away from the mess in the grass to curl under another bush. Humiliating yes, but less so than if one of the other soldiers would see her there. PicoDevimon would never let her forget it if he saw. She wondered if she had enough status now that she could get away with spearing him through the face and replacing him with someone more competent. After all, he had failed every mission the master had given him, while she had killed the eighth child, even if their lord wanted to carry that out himself. It had saved him effort. Maybe that was where the vomiting came from, bruising.
Tailmon concentrated on her breathing, on clenching her paws beneath the claw gloves she had won. The gloves had been her proof to her master that she was loyal and worth keeping. Not many in that rank castle could say that. Then again, most of them were dead.
But now… she didn't know what they were going to do.
Conquering was obvious on the list. But this world was much larger than it seemed like any of them had anticipated, even their master. It wasn't going to be easy.
It wasn't likely she'd survive it either.
Thinking about that almost made her heave again. She had survived plenty. She wouldn't be destroyed by creatures she could easily kill! If anything, her master would kill her first.
She closed her eyes and drowned her thoughts. Then a scent wafted over her nose. Dinosaur and data. She winced and made herself climb up a tree. The less likelihood he could reach her, that his human could get close to her, the better, at least in her current state. For all she knew he was expecting divebomb attacks by now. Tailmon would in his position.
"Taichi..."
She heard the dinosaur, Agumon, hard to miss, whine and rolled her eyes. It was a whine of concern, like Wizarmon from the shadows. You could only care for someone when no one else was looking. That was a fact of life.
Or at least of her own life.
She watched the boy and his dinosaur, the expression of smugness and then horror that she had seen when they had briefly met was now replaced with desolation. He had blood on his cheek and dirt over his face. He had fallen once, and had probably only picked himself up through sheer willpower.
Only yesterday, this would have made her smile. It made the master's work much easier, to have his enemies be so crushed.
Now, however, it only brought a sense of crushing sorrow, and for the life of her, she had no idea why.
