--o--o--o--
Chapter 8
Life Lessons
--o--o--o--
Istaqamon frantically tried to redirect his Star Scatter attack-- but it was too late. The tiny streaks of light hissed through the air where the falling stone had been only a fraction of a second before and were scattered by the turbulence of the evaporating vortex of energy surrounding Kunomon. The brilliant particles spattered against the rear wall of the cave, harmlessly winking out as they burned a myriad of pits into the sandstone.
The first thing Black Kyuubimon was aware of after the vortex disappeared was Istaqamon's howl of grief-- so intense in the small, enclosed space, that she could feel the sound beat against her body.
It wasn't just sound. Istaqamon had tried to stretch his hand out to the egg and been prevented by his massive size. Even pushing with all of his might, he couldn't force himself further into the cave and so he was shedding energy. The roiling strength of his Ultimate form flowed out of him so violently that the very structure of the digital stone of the cave's mouth wavered for an instant. He flickered through his Kaliskamon form briefly as he lunged for the rear of the cave and was Coyomon when he knelt above the crushed egg.
Coyomon flung the stone off of the egg, desperately hoping that the damage might somehow be slight-- that there might be some way to save his child. He reached toward the broken shell and then drew back, not daring to touch it for fear of doing more harm. He phased out of sync and saw what he most dreaded-- the tiny glow of energy in the ruined egg was quickly fading away.
Black Kyuubimon watched him reappear into normal space. He was in his Rookie form-- nowhere near a match for her new strength even if he had been willing to fight-- and he had his back turned to her. It was the perfect opportunity.
The violet ghost fire at the tips of her seven tails flared brightly and grinning, evil faces formed in the flames. Her Venom Fire attack was at full strength and she had only to give a light flick of her night-black tails to launch it at her helpless enemy. One subtle movement and she would have her revenge on the bastard who had contemptuously spurned her offer of partnership-- who had almost thwarted her plans for greatness-- who knelt before her, weeping for his lost child.
Coyomon had placed his hands on the broken shell of the egg and a soft red glow pulsed under his palms. She could see the flow of his energy and data passing through the small, still form half hidden beneath the fragments of shell. It flowed out through the tiny creature's wounds and dissipated uselessly into the ground.
It was Black Kyuubimon's moment of triumph. Her enemy was completely at her mercy.
Mercy.
The faces in her ghost flames lost their evil grins and faded away as she took a hesitant half step toward Coyomon. She opened her mouth but remained silent. She felt an urgent need to speak to him-- and had no idea what to say.
Coyomon finally realized his efforts were only delaying the inevitable and he let his hands drop away from his child. He slowly turned his head to look at Black Kyuubimon and the magnitude of the hatred in his eyes made her flinch back from him, the evil faces in her ghost fire instinctively reappearing.
Tiny red sparkles of light formed around Coyomon's trembling hands. He had no chance to win a fight against Black Kyuubimon in his weakened Rookie form but all he wanted to do was hurt her as much as possible. If it cost him his life it would be worth it-- just to hear a cry of pain from her one last time.
Calumon saw Coyomon rise, snarling from the cave's floor and what was about to happen was perfectly obvious even to that foolish little digimon. "No! No, please don't," he wailed, swinging helplessly from the cord that circled Black Kyuubimon's waist-- and in his anguish, the mark on his forehead blazed to life once again.
--o--o--o--
Guilmon sat silently beside Renamon as the rest of the group listened to the chief Gekomon's tale of woe. They had fallen through the treacherous sands of the Iron Desert into this wooded area only a few hours ago and now they were immersed in a complex tangle of other digimon's problems.
Guilmon sighed. How would they ever find Takato now? They weren't even trying. He missed his tamer terribly. His friend Coyomon was gone, too. When he rescued Calumon and returned to where he had left them, would he think that they had deserted him? And, if that weren't enough to worry about, the slightly sour smell of fermentation wafting from the Gekomon's sake brewery reminded him of the yeasty smell of fresh bread. His stomach rumbled loudly and Renamon glanced down at him. He grinned apologetically.
She gave him a reassuring smile and patted his head gently before returning her attention to the ranting Gekomon.
Guilmon thought about how much nicer she had become since she had tried to blast his head off the first time they met. She and Coyomon had become really good friends and she was probably missing him nearly as much as he was missing Takato.
He reached over and patted her hand in return.
--o--o--o--
The digivolution vortex blazed into shape, its whirling, helical bars releasing bright arcs of energy into the surrounding rock.
Black Kyuubimon stared at the vortex in disbelief, then shuddered and turned her head to gaze back along her dark flank to where Calumon hung. The little digimon seemed just as surprised at what was happening as she was. Black Kyuubimon realized that she still had no command over Calumon's power and that he would always be as much help to her enemies as he was to her until she learned to control him. Her only safety lay in keeping him far away from other digimon until she learned his secrets. She leaped out of the cave in a single bound, landing on the edge of the mesa and jumping in a powerful arc up into the sky, phasing out as she did so.
The dim red sparkles of Coyomon's incipient Fang Flurry attack whirled away in the turbulence of the vortex as his hands fell to his sides. He tried desperately to see what was happening inside the phase energy field as it spun and pulsed around the remains of his shattered egg but could only catch meaningless glimpses of something beyond.
When the vortex began to fade, after what seemed to Coyomon to be an eternity, he felt a shock of horror and disappointment sweep through him. The egg was still broken-- pieces of shell dropping away as the last of the swirling vortex energy dissipated.
No-- they weren't dropping away-- they were being pushed away as the moving form within the egg struggled to be born.
The fragments of her shell faded into nonexistence as she unfolded from the egg and stood, impossibly tall to have come from that small object. She looked around at her simple surroundings in wonder and smiled at the digimon who stood next to her. He was smiling too, even though his cheeks were streaked with tears. He felt familiar to her somehow-- a reassuring presence in her first moments of awareness. "Hello," she said, finding her voice. It was a soft, almost musical sound that nevertheless carried a sense of quiet strength, "I'm Ceyamon. Who are you?"
--o--o--o--
Orochimon's breath made Renamon's eyes water even when he wasn't consciously using the powerful reek of alcohol as a weapon. When she got a full blast of it, it made her head swim. She silently cursed the absence of her mate. Leomon had almost collided with her during the first attack and was now fighting as if he were the only digimon involved. If Coyomon had been there she was certain that their teamwork would have had the hydra digimon's necks tied in knots and too confused to mount any sort of defense by that time.
Renamon slammed feet-first into one of Orochimon's heads, the blue ghost fire of her Power Paw attack bursting through its skull and fragmenting it and the long neck attached. The other heads remained unaffected and one swung at her, its gigantic fangs slamming together, missing her by a hair's breadth. Renamon smacked it under the jaw with a bicycle kick, thinking with regret about how much fun Coyomon would have been having if he had only been there with her.
--o--o--o--
Coyomon nearly stumbled several times while running across the uneven desert terrain with his daughter. He kept turning to admire her and lost track of the upcoming dips and rocks in his path. She was, unsurprisingly, mostly a blend of her parents' characteristics but also had some unique traits of her own. She had all of her mother's suppleness and grace and seemed to be just as strong as her father despite her willowy figure. Her tail wasn't the prominent, thick banner of Renamon's but it was nearly as long and beautifully colored and marked, as was the rest of her body.
Ceyamon glanced over at her father, a joyous smile on her graceful muzzle. Her emerald eyes sparkled with exhilaration as they sprinted across the sand; her long, sharply pointed ears and cheek and shoulder tufts streaming in the wind.
"Hey," Coyomon shouted to her as they ran, "Would you like to play a game?"
"Yes!" she cried joyfully.
"Okay," he said as he scooped up one of the rolling balls of old data that were common in that place. "It's called Don't-Drop-the-Baby--"
They spent the next hour tearing around the landscape laughing and behaving like a couple of complete idiots. Coyomon had a motive in addition to just celebrating the existence of his daughter-- he was also evaluating her abilities. He got quite a shock. She was stronger and faster than he was and her aura blazed more intensely than any Rookie's he had ever encountered. Maybe the digivolution vortex had something to do with it. Coyomon was sure Ceyamon had been in her Child form as she lay dying in her crushed shell. But, then he had hatched into his Rookie form as had Guilmon. He just didn't know enough about digimon lifecycles to figure it out.
The ball of data finally fragmented and swirled away on the wind.
"Aww," Ceyamon said as she watched its bits fade away.
"It's okay," Coyomon told her, "we should be getting back to the others now, anyway. Once you meet your mother we can show you an even better game. It's called sparring."
"My mother--" Ceyamon said with childlike eagerness, "Is she really as pretty as you said? She'll like me, won't she? Is she a good fighter? Can we--"
"Yes," Coyomon interrupted her, "yes, yes, and yes! She will love you just as much as I do-- oh yeah, and you'll get to meet real humans!"
"Are they nice? Are they good fighters?"
"Most are nice. They're all different from each other but none of them are very good fighters by digimon standards. It's when they partner up with a digimon that they get-- well-- that'll take a lot of explaining. You'll see."
Ceyamon clapped her hands together in glee and spun around in a circle. "I can't wait!"
"I can," Coyomon said in a suddenly sour voice. "I'm going to have to explain to Rika that I lost Calumon."
--o--o--o--
--oOo--oOo--oOo--oOo--
Author's Notes:
1) Ceyamon is pronounced with a soft C - "Say-a-mon".
2) Yes, the Gekomon were brewing sake. The American dub of the series protected the younger kiddies by representing the drink as "milkshakes" because the folks behind the BS&P believe that small children would be irreparably damaged by even the mention of alcohol in a cartoon show.
Pussies.
--oOo--oOo--oOo--oOo--