DISCLAIMER: I don't own Digimon, but I do own the OCs introduced in this story (except where stated).
In case of confusion, I've run two episodes in together to make this one, 'O Partner, Where Art Thou' and 'Now You See It, Now You Don't'.
DEVIATIONS
Chapter 5
The Partner Puzzle
The chatter of the Hypnos control room when Yamaki was absent was always far more interesting than when he was present, although it inevitably ended up still work related, albeit more informal.
"Energy fluctuations in sector S5…" Riley noted.
"That's the fourth time today…" Tally replied.
"Yeah, and it's increasing across the board…"
"What do you thinks' going on?"
"I think something big is going down…"
"Like what?"
"No idea…but if these readings are correct, we're going to get a level of bioemergence far higher than we've ever seen before…" Riley warned.
"Morning Guilmon!" Takato cheered, as he ran up with bags of bread before he had to go to school that day. The Sunday had been largely uneventful; a few games of cards with Henry were had until he suggested that they do their homework together. They were interrupted by a wayward Calumon who took the sheet of work that Takato had just finished and turned it into a hat (or at least, an approximation of a hat), which then promptly blew away, leaving Takato to groan and Henry offering to help him start over from the beginning. Regardless, it had been a relaxing day, no enemy Digimon, no school, and most of all, no Rika.
Takato was still unsure what had gotten him so worked up the previous day about her, but he had somehow found the guts to stand up to her. He put it down to anger, and it still made little difference, she still put him down as always. Would they ever even have a chance to be friends, and would they have become friends under different circumstances? Takato frowned, the answer was probably no.
"Morning Takatomon…" Guilmon greeted dreamily.
Takato and Guilmon walked along a morning street, taking the fact that Takato had to wake up early to their advantage by using the mostly empty streets around the park, which would soon be full of commuter's cars. Takato smiled, it was good to have a chance to be with his partner before school.
"Takatomon, do you ever sleep all funny?"
"Huh?"
"Last night when I was sleeping, it felt like I disappeared and went somewhere else…"
"Huh? You didn't escape again, did you?"
"No…"
"Maybe it was a dream then…"
"What's a dream?"
"It's when you're sleeping and you are in your own little world, full of strange things…"
"I don't think I was dreaming then, this world I went to was boring and foggy…"
"Huh? I've never had a dream like that…"
"What do you dream of?"
"I dream of Digimon, Battles and Rika…"
"You dream of Rika?"
Takato blushed slightly, realising what he had said. "No, I don't, don't worry about that…" he insisted.
"Okay Takatomon…" Guilmon replied, Takato suddenly noticing that his legs and lower body had turned fuzzy.
"What's happening?" Takato panicked.
"Huh?"
"You're blurring?"
Guilmon looked to his legs in confusion, as Takato grabbed him and pulled him from it, somehow restoring him to his usual fully red state.
"What was that?" Takato asked in fear.
"Did I do something wrong?" Guilmon asked.
"Something really weird is going on here…"
Another snotty day dawned in Rika's snotty boarding school full of her snotty fellow pupils. Today would be different somewhat, parents were invited to come and observe the lessons, an invitation which Rumiko, Rika's mother, had taken up, a move which surprised her no end.
Rika glanced in her mirrored pencil case to see her mother taking a phone call. She frowned; looks like things would be the same of always.
The teacher continued to blah on, as Rika made the occasional notes, but didn't pay much attention to the lessons.
'Why should I care about anyone else when not even my own mother cares about me?' she thought spitefully.
Henry and Takato sat by a tree, the problems with Hypnos and the lines now gone and the students free to use the playground once again. Takato was eating bread, and Henry was eating food from the cafeteria, which he recoiled at.
"Smart idea bringing bread…" Henry joked to his friend.
"Yeah, working in a bakery helps…" Takato replied. "Do you want some?" he asked, passing a piece to the blue haired boy.
"Thanks…" Henry replied, beginning to eat it. Takato frowned, trying to find a way to pose his question without involving Guilmon, who to his knowledge Henry didn't know about.
"Henry…" he began. "Do you think that Digimon could just…vanish?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I mean like, how do they get back to the Digital World? Do they just spontaneously start vanishing?"
"No idea…that is strange though…"
"Yeah…I saw Calumon earlier on my way to school…he began to just vanish, until I pulled him away and it stopped…" Takato's lie made very little difference to the actual point in his eyes, although it would be troubling if Henry were to ask Calumon about it later.
"Really?"
"Yeah, I'm worried we could lose him…"
"Hmm…maybe the real world just rejects Digimon, like a virus in the body…or maybe they can't hold their form here long enough and they go back?"
"But I don't want him to go back!"
'Takato must be talking about Guilmon, he couldn't be this attached to Calumon…'
"Do you know something?"
"I just know that nothing lasts forever Takato…"
"Well this will…" Takato insisted, standing up emotionally and running away. Henry watched his friend sadly.
'Good luck Takato…' he thought, worrying also if the dream of having a Digimon wasn't all it seemed. Maybe they were merely temporary, their existence on its own was surprising, he wouldn't be surprised if there was a flaw to it.
'What do I do if Guilmon leaves?' Takato thought, as he sat in class doodling a picture of Guilmon anxiously on his notepad.
The sound of footsteps approached him.
'Maybe if he digivolved he'd be strong enough to withstand what's happening…'
"Clearly you aren't paying attention to the class if you're drawing pictures of that dinosaur again…" Mrs Asagi told him, making him look up in surprise.
"Oops…sorry Mrs Asagi…I was paying attention though…"
"Okay, then tell me everything you know about the tunnels under the park…"
"Um…" Takato began, dumb expression on his face. Mrs Asagi waited for a few seconds in order to take advantage of his alarm, before deciding that it wasn't worth it.
"Oh, it's a worthless lesson anyway; you made the right choice to goof off in this one Takato…" Mrs Asagi sighed, returning to the front of the class.
Takato glanced at the board, where a rudimentary map had been drawn. The spot which the tunnel ran under looked familiar, and this alarmed him.
"I want to know about the tunnels…" he said, but it was far too quiet for anyone to hear.
"Then listen in class for once…" one of his fellow students mocked.
"I don't care about her…" Rika muttered as she walked away from school. "If she can't even cancel a fashion shoot to be with me, then why should I try to spend time with her?" she added.
She came to a crossing on a quiet road, and crossed, glancing left and right for anything periodically.
'Like I even care if she does spend time with me or not…'
Rika recalled an event the previous day when her mother had tried to talk to her while she was looking at her Digimon cards, even calling them Tarot cards at one point. She had ignored her mother most of the time and grunted occasionally, not particularly caring for what she was saying. She mentioned something about Rika needing to think what she wanted to do with her life, something which Rika found to be a stupid question.
'I know what I want to do in my life, but she'd never understand…it's not just a card game, and it's a lot better and respectable than modelling…besides, I'm good at it already, like I need to think about it…'
A geyser of light caught her attention, and her expression crept into a smile, as her pace quickened. This day might just turn out to be fun after all…
"Hey Guilmon!" Takato greeted, arriving eagerly back at the hideout to check that his partner still existed, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw that he did. He was talking to Calumon, who seemed to have returned again.
"Hi Takatomon!" Calumon greeted.
"Guilmon, did you tell him that my name is Takatomon?"
"No, but why, isn't it?" Guilmon asked.
"No, it's just Takato…"
"That's silly…" Calumon joked. Takato frowned, looking to the fairy, and asking a question that had bugged him.
"Calumon, where do you go during the day to, you know, hang out? Do you have a home or anything?"
"I have the whole world, I don't need a home…I come and go as I please!"
"But, don't you get lonely?"
"No…that's silly, there's Digimon everywhere in this world!" he cheered, once again not understanding the distinction between humans and Digimon. "Bye!" he cheered, running away once again. Takato frowned, the white blob was confusing.
"You know, it is silly!" Guilmon noted. Takato groaned, before noting a bleeping on his D-Arc.
"Time for action boy!" he told his partner.
Rika's dull, drab school outfit had been replaced by her usual blue and white attire by the time she stepped into the Digital Field that dominated a suburban road lined with houses, Renamon following. She removed her glasses once she had passed the layer which she had once learnt caused temporary vision impairment. In her first battle she had been caught unaware of this problem, and since then she had been far more prepared.
She smirked, the previous day's attempts at a battle had been foiled by a particular Gogglehead, and it was time for her and Renamon to get back on track battle-wise. A large blue dinosaur with red stripes crossing its skin stepped out of the mist, a tuft of hair on the back of its head running a short way down its back.
"Now this is interesting…" Rika noted. "Ready Renamon?" she asked.
"Of course…" the vixen replied, narrowing her eyes on the beast as Rika checked her D-Arc.
"Allomon, Data Type, Armour Level, his attacks are Dino Burst and Dynamite Head…interesting, an amour level, somewhat unpredictable…regardless, nothing is a challenge for you Renamon…" she analysed.
"As we both know…" Renamon replied, walking forwards into the fray.
"Walk all over him!"
"With ease!" Renamon replied, leaping into the air and slamming her foot into the dinosaur's face. It grunted in pain, before swinging its tail around.
"Take this!" it roared, as Renamon was hit and knocked to the ground behind Rika, groaning in pain.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Rika ordered, not caring for her partner's injuries, as she lifted a card. "Time to fight properly…" she decided. "DIGI-MODIFY…SnowAgumon's Frozen Wind Activate!"
Renamon smiled, standing up as she felt the cold modification course through her. She leapt into the air, holding out her hand and using the loaned attack. "FROZEN WIND!" she called, sending forth a burst of icy wind at Allomon, who opened his jaws to release his counter-attack.
"DINO BURST!" he roared, a burst of flame shooting forth and meeting with the icy wind. The two attacks fought, Renamon knowing that she probably wouldn't be able to hold the borrowed move much longer.
"Fight properly!" Rika called. "You're just getting sloppy!" she taunted to her partner.
The words seemed to weaken Renamon as she threw more energy into her blast, feeling the oncoming tiredness already, as Rika stared on, determined to win.
"PYRO SPHERE!" came an attack from the side, colliding with Allomon's head and making him move. Renamon's additional abilities subsided, as she tiredly dropped to the concrete and landed gracefully, inwardly cursing herself for being unable to defeat the creature with the move.
"What the hell are you doing here?!" Rika asked, turning to Takato arriving, clutching his D-Arc in hand and with Guilmon now in position near Allomon, growling.
"I'm here to stop this guy!" Takato replied.
"This is mine and Renamon's battle; she still has yet to take out your little pet…you'll have to wait…"
"I'm here to help you!"
"I don't need any help…" Rika replied, turning to her partner who was struggling to stand. Reflecting on it, funnelling all of her energy into a single attack, in particular a borrowed move from a modify card that required more energy in itself to pull off correctly, was a thoughtless move that Rika cursed herself for letting Renamon do, thinking she should've instead used more modify cards. But Renamon had to become strong enough to beat any Digimon without any cards at all, and babying her with modify cards like the Gogglehead had begun to do with Guilmon was something she wasn't prepared to do.
She frowned, looking at her partner. She was weak in her eyes, not even enough to stand up to an armour level. So what if Armour levels had power ranging from a strong rookie to a weak ultimate, Renamon could beat any of them with Rika as her partner. It felt like a personal embarrassment to have the Gogglehead see her failure, and she wouldn't let it continue. Renamon was going to beat Allomon, alone, and then she was going to beat Guilmon and load his data, and she would finally be free of the annoyance wearing the goggles that had bugged her for the past few days.
"Renamon, digivolve now!" she ordered, Renamon glancing to her in concern. "Do it!" Rika added, sick and tired of no progress in her partner's levels for so long.
Renamon attempted to do so, but a tail slammed into her and she was slammed in a building, groaning in pain.
"Rika, you've got to help her!" Takato advised, alarm in his voice at Renamon's condition.
"Quiet!" Rika called, pulled a card into her hand. "DIGI-MODIFY…Digivolution Activate!"
Renamon suddenly began to scream in pain as her data blurred, the card burning her as it failed to have any effect. Rika groaned in annoyance, pointing at her partner.
"You're completely useless!"
"Leave her alone!" Takato said to her in anger, as an overpowered Guilmon, hazard flashing erratically leapt at Allomon.
"ROCK BREAKER!" he called, slamming into the other dinosaur's side and causing pain in the blue one's side, as it turned and slammed it's head into Guilmon.
"You don't even care at all about your partner!" Takato snapped. "You just let her get injured and couldn't even care less about her…"
Rika recoiled slightly, somewhat surprised at Takato's outburst, before she balled her hand into a fist, denying what he was saying.
"DYNAMITE HEAD!" he roared, as the explosive force of the collision threw Guilmon aside.
"Guilmon!" Takato called, running to his partner, who was surprisingly back on his feet once again, hurt but not affected by it. Guilmon growled, his behaviour seemingly out of control. "Um…Guilmon?" Takato asked nervously.
"PYRO SPHERE!" he roared, a huge burst of fire far larger than normal erupting from his mouth and colliding with the blue dinosaur, blowing a hole in him and breaking him into data.
Renamon leapt into the air, absorbing it as some of her injuries healed, landing gracefully, although still painfully.
"Hey!" Takato complained.
"You weren't going to make good use of it…and by the way, you're wrong, Rika does not just let me get injured, she knew exactly what she was doing in that battle…" she corrected, looking to Takato. Rika glanced to her partner curiously, she'd been the one who was injured and now she was defending what her Tamer had done. Rika had made mistakes, and Renamon still denied them, standing fast.
Guilmon growled to Renamon, the anger still in him from the hazard. Renamon glanced to him.
"Um…are you okay?" Takato asked, Guilmon blinking and then looking to his Tamer, anger subsiding suddenly.
"Yes Takatomon, why?" he asked, completely oblivious to how he had been acting.
"You were acting…kinda weird…"
Rika glanced to the pair, considering a battle, before glancing to Renamon, trying to stand as normal on a clearly injured foot. She frowned, Renamon was pathetic in getting injured, but at the same time, loosing her in battle and having the Gogglehead and his baby dinosaur being the only ones dealing with these threats, leaving her aside like a nobody, was not an option. Guilmon's erratic power surges were too much of a risk at the moment, and so she swallowed her pride, walking away from the human and dinosaur. "Come on Renamon…" she called, Renamon carefully following behind her, making sure not to press down on her foot.
"Hey!" Takato called. "Don't just run off…"
Rika continued to walk, ignoring the Gogglehead except for to mock him. "Go to hell Gogglehead…" she replied.
Impmon smirked, watching their fallout below. Then again, the term 'fall out' suggests that they were ever friends in the first place. "Pathetic humans…" he muttered. "Pathetic Digimon too, fancy working for a human like that, and getting hurt to boot…so pathetic, absolutely no independence for themselves…"
Rika bit her lip, walking along the route back to her home, not once glancing at the partner she had become ashamed of.
'Is she trying to make me look bad?' she thought, her eyebrows furrowing in annoyance. 'Who does she think she is, I'm the best and if she can't be the same then I don't need her…?'
"Rika, are you okay?" the fox asked, concern in her voice.
"Why can't you digivolve?!" Rika asked, sounding like an insult towards Renamon, which was exactly how it was intended. "I used a card for god's sake, what the hell else do you need?"
"I'm sorry Rika…"
"If you can't digivolve, I don't need you…I'm going to be the best, and if you can't match that, then I don't need you, got it?"
Renamon frowned. "I'm sorry Rika…"
"Humph…" Rika replied, continuing on along her path and deciding to ignore her fox-like partner, who followed ashamedly.
'Why am I unable to digivolve? What else do I need?' Renamon thought, feeling annoyed at herself at being unable to do anything to please her partner. 'At this rate, that dino will reach champion level before I do…'
Renamon vanished into thin air as Rika turned and opened the gate to her home, storming through the door and ignoring her grandma's greeting, entering her room and falling down on her futon.
Renamon reappeared, looking to her partner, eager to hear what she would ask of her.
"Go away Renamon…we'll talk later…" Rika ordered. Renamon dipped her head, vanishing once again. Rika gritted her teeth, recalling how she had met the partner whom she had begun to feel disgraced about.
It had been a month prior to their first battle against Guilmon and Takato in the park, the day of the Digital Monster Card Tournament, held in Akihabara by its largest store stocking them. The time around the tournament was always a major time for the Digimon fanbase, since it led to plenty of potential opponents gathering in the area and wishing to compete, so practicing was easy.
Rika didn't bother to practice for the tournament.
Since her first tournament, when she as an nine year old beat a fourteen year old who thought they were a champion, she had amassed a collection of three more medals, leaving so called 'masters' of the game in her wake each year since then. She had first acquired the cards a year before the first tournament, and had quickly mastered them, spending all her spare time and pocket money on them, and thriving in the number of opponents available to beat in Shinjuku Park's playground, which surprised both them and her watching grandma. She had taken to the cards for an unknown reason, Rumiko had frowned upon her somewhat for it, but the wins began to make Rika realise that her mother was only interested in fashion, rather than in her personal hobbies, and they had continued to grow distant since then.
The game had begun to grow tedious; at one point she enjoyed watching the reactions on her early teen-aged opponents, who tended to be her competition in the finals, the double reaction of being beaten by a girl who was also younger than them being priceless, but it was no longer so impressive.
She had returned home, practically discarding the medallion alongside the others, having received it in a somewhat cold reception ceremony with an over-eager presenter, placed her cards on the table and lay on her futon, contemplating how everyone was less than her, and how she had become bored.
The atmosphere in the room had suddenly altered, as her card reader strangely glowed, and three bright white three-dimensional squares had appeared in her room. At the time Rika had felt scared, for the first time in years for that matter, but she later realised that that was weak. Not facing up to something like that and simply freaking out about it. As pathetic as the Gogglehead.
Digimon had appeared, yearned for digivolution, for partnership, for strength, all talking at once and making her quiver back against the wall in fear as hands reached out. Rika couldn't believe that she had been so scared by them, they were so pathetic and she was so strong, they had no right to even speak in her presence like that, and had she later had the chance with Renamon, she would've wiped the floor with all of them.
She recalled calling out that she wanted just one strong Digimon. And then, she came. The sea of digimon parted as her card reader grew brighter, a shadowed fox-like shape walking through the rest, which she recognised as a Renamon, a card she had once dismissed as a weak rookie that paled in comparison to more tactical creatures.
"You wanted someone powerful, didn't you?"
Rika gritted her teeth, Renamon wasn't powerful at all! She couldn't even digivolve.
She couldn't even take out Gogglehead's pathetic little dino-boy for god's sake!
Takato frowned as he sat, back to the wall of the hideout, looking to his partner who seemed to have occupied himself with extending the hole he had dug in the floor, his tail wagging out of it as he did so. The earlier battle had worried Takato, the look he had seen in the redhead's partner's eyes looked painful, but also sorrowful. He couldn't imagine being Rika's partner, being ordered around like that, and then still following orders to the book.
Something didn't seem right. Why did Renamon follow Rika, even after how she was treated? Was Rika all she seemed?
Then again, he wasn't exactly Rika's friend; she wasn't going to be nice to him. But, did she even have any friends at all? When they first met, he had assumed that Renamon was her friends, but the recent battle had made him think otherwise.
At the same time, he knew that he wanted to be Rika's friend. They both had Digimon; they were both Tamers, why did she object to it so much? They had seemed to be close to becoming friends when they had escaped Hypnos, but she didn't change. She still came after Guilmon, she still wouldn't listen to him, and she didn't even want to fight alongside him.
"I only make friends with the best, and no-one is better than or equal to me…"
It seemed that she was true to her word: not even Renamon seemed to be equal to her. And her threat of attacking without warning also worried him, although it did make him wonder what she intended to do before then.
His eyes widened, as Guilmon's tail began to fizz, and he leapt forward in panic.
"Guilmon!" he yelled, grabbing his partner's tail.
"Takatomon, I feel funny!" Guilmon replied, his voice turning strange.
"No!" Takato yelled, before his hands fell right through and Guilmon vanished into thin air from the hole, red gaseous blobs of data floating away. "Guilmon!" he yelled to it, to no avail, before falling back, completely unknowing of what to do.
He stared to the hole where Guilmon's tail had once been. The bread scoffing dino who was his friend. His best friend. Even when he ran away, even when he went feral, even when he tried to eat his D-Arc when Takato had forgotten bread for that evening.
And he was gone. Takato had lost him. Not to Rika, not to Hypnos, but to a random event that made him fade away, a painful long loss.
"I'm not losing him! He's got to be somewhere!" he decided, clenching his fists properly for the first time in his life, and pushing himself up and standing determined. To face Hypnos or anything that dared take his friend.
Even if he had to get Rika's help to do so.
In that moment, sitting with her back to the wall and quivering as the windows vanished, Rika had felt true fear, unjustified fear, fear she swore she would never have again. Not in being frightened, not in being threatened, let alone in worrying for another.
She had crawled across the floor to her no-longer glowing card reader left on the table. She had begun to have doubts of what she had seen, considering it to be a wild fantasy or a dream, and cursing herself for it. Then she found it, amongst her cards, a card of blue with the Digital Monster symbol, a symbol which vanished upon tilting it. Her curiosity had been triggered, and she lifted her card reader, sweeping the card through it.
Then it happened. To her gaping expression, her card reader glowed and morphed, becoming the D-Arc that was still clipped to her belt today. She had wished for only one thing, a wish she now doubted as having any effect, but regardless, the result was the same.
Renamon had appeared in front of her, glowing, before dropping gracefully to the ground as she had always done since then. She had said that she was looking for a strong Tamer, and announced that Rika was it.
"It's no accident that we're a team: share your strength with me, and we will be unstoppable…"
The lie hurt. Rika swore it was a lie, Renamon hadn't digivolved yet, she seemed to have begun to pale in comparison to the Gogglehead's partner, and she was a pathetic waste of a partner. Rika had done her side of the deal, she shared her strength with Renamon in every battle, she'd swiped cards practically every time.
What else did she have to do?
"All I need to do is destroy one strong Digimon, maybe even Guilmon, and load the data. How hard can it be?" Renamon mooted, feeling the pain beginning to subside in her foot as she took the pressure off it by sitting on a telephone wire.
"By the looks of ya, you still ain't ditched your human yet, so it's as hard as taking a shower with only an INFERNAL FUNNEL!" a voice yelled, as a sphere of fire collided with the fox, knocking her off balance as she swung round and grabbed onto the wire, looking towards her foe with angered eyes.
"Who are you?" she asked angrily.
"Impmon's the name, no partner's the game…" replied the purple Imp, smirking at the fox.
"Another target to destroy…" Renamon replied, swinging up into the air and crossing her arms.
"Wait, what?!" Impmon asked, surprised at having no chance to talk like he had prepared.
"DIAMOND STORM!" the fox shrieked, Impmon's eyes going wide as he leapt back, tumbling to the ground.
"Ya could've let me finish!" he complained, standing up, as Renamon landed, looking towards her foe who had escaped, ready to finish the fight which she expected to be short lived.
"Renamon…"
Renamon frowned, she would've hoped to have finished this fight to become one step closer to pleasing her Tamer by digivolving, but by the looks of it, she would have to wait until later. She vanished into thin air.
"Hey, come back!" Impmon complained. "Aw, what's the use?!" he added in annoyance.
Yamaki frowned. They'd picked up an anomaly in the data patterns, unlike any they'd seen before. "Send a tracer…" he ordered, the usual procedure. It bugged him, it simply seemed to be a strange white gap on the monitors, and that was apparently what it would be like in real life too.
He watched as the symbol for the tracer moved towards it, before it vanished.
"It was destroyed…" Riley noted. Yamaki frowned.
"You called?" Renamon asked, appearing in Rika's room once again.
"Who's Impmon?" Rika asked, looking at her D-Arc. "Impmon, Virus Type, Rookie Level, his attacks are Bada-Boom and Infernal Funnel…"
"I have dealt with him…" Renamon reported, Rika nodding.
"Good…" she replied. "I'm giving you one last chance, and we're going after Guilmon…" she decided.
"Excellent…"
Takato ran past where their earlier confrontation had taken place. From here on, he was simply guessing, he'd seen where Rika had gone, but he had no idea where she lived. He just hoped he was lucky enough to figure it out.
He had to. For Guilmon.
He ran into smaller streets, lined by houses, before reaching a dead-end in the road, led off by two pedestrian-only pathways. He turned right, completely guessing in his moves, as he turned randomly occasionally, running faster and faster as if it would make a difference. He felt his breath waning, the effort of running, albeit at his surprisingly fast pace, taking its toll. He looked down to the ground, before running straight into something.
He heard a grunt as he recoiled. A female grunt.
"What the hell?" Rika asked, looking up at the brunette. "You again…" she noted, smiling at her luck. It would save her so much time for Renamon to finally take out his little dino. "Finally a chance to take out your little partner…"
"Guilmon vanished…" Takato said spitefully.
"What?" Rika asked, her voice blunt and completely the antipathy of what Takato wanted at that moment.
"He just faded, and then vanished…" Takato told her, more emotionally.
Rika frowned. "Should I care?"
Takato frowned, looking to one side. "I thought you were looking forward to destroying him?" he asked. "Surely that's a reason for you to care?"
Rika silently cursed him, he was right; she was annoyed that Renamon apparently wouldn't have her chance to get the dinosaur that had proved to be their bane. She glanced up, noticing something move behind him.
"Hypnos…" she muttered, identifying the four familiar style black suits approaching along the pathway. What on earth were they doing here?
She grabbed Takato by the hand as he looked up to figure out what she had said, and dragged him back, putting one arm around his waist when he turned out to be more difficult to move than she thought.
"What are you…" he began, before her hand covered his mouth as she pulled him back through her house's gate. He began to try to talk and struggle, as she kicked the gate closed.
"It's Hypnos…" she whispered to him, as he stopped struggling, his expression changing to one of alarm of a different kind, as he tried to move forward to look through the gap in the fence, but was unable to.
"Can you move your arm?" he asked quietly, Rika blushing as she realised she still had her arm around his waist, removing it quickly as Renamon raised an eyebrow.
Rika quickly dismissed it, before joining Takato in looking through the crack in the gate as the Hypnos officers ran past, potentially having spotted her and Takato at the end of the pathway they were on. They thankfully didn't notice the two pairs of eyes watching them which subsequently sighed in relief, and moved away from the gap.
"I think we're safe…" Takato noted.
"Then get out of my house…" Rika said, her voice now vexed.
"Hey, you dragged me in here…and, I kinda need your help…"
Rika raised an eyebrow; Takato couldn't be so stupid as to expect her to help him with anything, would he?
"Ah, Rika, I see you've brought a friend home…" said the voice of Seiko Hata, interrupting the pair from behind them as she opened the door to see what the commotion was about. "And you would be?" she asked.
"Takato…" replied the goggle-headed boy, as Rika inwardly groaned.
"Please come in then…" Seiko offered, Takato nodding nervously and entering the house, an annoyed Rika following soon after.
'Oh great, things are turning out really well…' Rika thought, as Seiko pointed down the hallway leading to the other rooms of the house.
"You'll probably want to sit outside on such a nice day…" she noted, as Takato noticed a garden through an open sliding door on the hallway.
"Thank you…" Takato replied, trying to simply be polite in the absence of any other idea of what to do.
"You seem like a nice young man, Rika doesn't bring many friends home…" Seiko noted, smiling. Rika frowned, grabbing Takato's wrist and dragging him down the hallway.
"Come on Gogglehead…" she said, annoyance in her voice, as Seiko smiled in amusement.
'Surprising to see Rika of all people with a boyfriend…at least, I assume that's what he is…why has she never mentioned him before?' she pondered. 'Oh well, mustn't intrude…at least not in a big way…' she mentally added.
Takato stepped out into the garden, and looked back to Rika nervously, as she let go of his wrist and sat on the boards of the hallway of her house. Takato turned around, unsure of what to do. "Um…I still don't understand why you don't like me…" he said, before regretting letting his thoughts escape.
"Christ you're persistent, what are you, in love with me or something loverboy? You and your little dreams about me?" she mocked.
"I admit, I had a dream about you before we met, and it's really bugged me because I don't know what it means…"
Rika glanced to Takato, as he raised his hands defensively by instinct.
"But, don't get the wrong idea, I'm not following you around because of that…in fact, I'm not trying to follow you around at all…I just wanted to ask about Guilmon and him vanishing…"
"Alright kid, don't get your knickers in a twist…"
"What are knickers?" Takato asked.
"Girl's underwear Gogglehead…" Rika explained, rolling her eyes.
"What, are you calling me a girl? And what do you mean kid, we're the same age?"
"I'm calling you a kid because you don't know anything about anything; you talk about seeing me in a dream. Do you know how weird that is?"
"Um…I'm sorry…" Takato tried to apologise.
"You apologise far too much Takato…Gogglehead…you really need a backbone…" Rika replied, correcting her mistake as she did so. Takato sat down carefully next to her, being careful so as not to have done so in error.
"I just thought that maybe we could work together…you know, you've got a Digimon, I…had a Digimon…" Takato replied, frowning upon remembering Guilmon's vanishing.
"What, like a couple?" Rika asked, questioning what he was suggesting as she raised her eyebrows in somewhat surprise.
"No, I meant a team!" Takato insisted, defensively raising his hands once again.
"Well, anyway, we can't…" Rika replied, Takato frowning in response. Renamon vanished into thin air all of a sudden, as Seiko called out through the house.
"Rika!" she shouted, before realising her mistake and opening the door, looking (although actually faking being) embarrassed. "Sorry, I'm not used to Rika having boyfriends home…"
Takato and Rika turned bright red, Takato then looking to Rika in order to see how she would react. He noticed himself instinctively raising his hands to block any unexpected punches, knowing that they weren't unlikely from what he'd heard.
"Grandma, he's not my boyfriend!" Rika insisted. Seiko chuckled; it was interesting to see how they reacted, although it did bug her if this boy wasn't in a relationship with her like that. She went to an all-girls school after all, and the way she seemed to act around him seemed anything but friendly. So why exactly was he here, and where on earth did they meet? "How about I make cookies for the two of you, it should only take a second in the oven?" she suggested.
"Thanks…" Takato replied, before feeling Rika try to shove him aside with her hand, although he knew she would've done more had her grandmother not been watching.
"He's not staying…" she replied. "You're not…" she asserted to him, whispering somewhat.
"Hope you come and see us again…" Seiko continued.
"Sure…" Takato replied, once again letting his mouth talk before his brain had time to compute the words.
"You're not…" Rika told him, as the door closed completely. Rika frowned, pushing him aside and causing him to fall over on the step, landing on his side on the floor as she chuckled at how he did so, before her mouth turned to a frown. "So, before you go, why did you even come here in the first place?" she asked.
"Um…I said already, Guilmon vanished and I need your help to find him…" he asked.
"So? How exactly?"
"Well, can Digimon turn back into data, and do they ever just disappear and go back to their own world?"
"Of course…"
"I mean, not when you destroy them and let the data go…"
Rika chuckled. "Never done that Gogglehead, and never plan to…" she replied, before noticing his expression. He didn't exactly look happy, nor in the mood to really take insults about the topic. "I mean, they're just data, so probably…"
"Doesn't that make you sad at all?"
"No, why? They're just data, getting attached to it is just like getting attached to a lump of dust…" Rika replied, rather callously for Takato considering that he noticed Renamon was well within earshot behind her.
"Oh…" Takato replied sadly, considering what he had seen today, and what he had contemplated earlier about their partnership, which seemed to merely be a fighting one. "Well…can you help me look for him?" he asked.
"No, I have better things to do…" Rika replied.
"Please…"
"Don't even try to grovel Gogglehead…I am not wasting my time with that, and that's final, got it?"
"Fine…" Takato replied, standing up. "I'll see myself out, thanks a lot…" he replied, Rika surprised at how direct he was being as he walked through the house, she following after a few seconds of surprise. "Bye Mrs…"
"Hata…" Seiko replied, looking in curiosity at Takato's annoyed pose and tone of voice, and the way that Rika was following him, almost apologetically. "Hope we see you again…" she added. Takato grunted, as he opened the door and left, heading through the gate soon after as Rika closed the door, before looking up to the stare of her Grandma.
"He is not my boyfriend!" she insisted.
"Did you break up then?" her grandma asked.
"No!" Rika replied defensively. "I was never with him, he's just…the Gogglehead…" he replied.
"Huh?"
"It's his nickname…"
Seiko began to smile, and Rika became more vexed by the second.
"Not like that!" she insisted, cottoning onto the fact that her grandmother thought it was some kind of pet name for him.
"Sure…" she replied, keeping only a hint of sarcasm in her voice, as Rika stormed off to her room. Seiko frowned; whatever was going on here was definitely very strange. Particularly since it involved Rika and boys, or in fact, Rika and other people in general. She had always noticed Rika's lack of friends, she never brought friends home, preferring solitude over it. It saddened the eldest in the household, Rika didn't seem to try to make friends with anyone, and, from what she had just witnessed, she'd blown it with the only person she possibly could do so with.
Takato's storming pace turned into an anxious run as his eyes began to redden and water, the events of the previous hour taking their toll. He quickly passed the pathways of the residential district and out to the streets outside, opening his eyes again only when he realised that he needed to see where he was going.
He had to find Guilmon.
Rika sat back down on the steps, looking at the ground, feeling the strange feeling of pity, and maybe even sadness, about the boy. She shook her head, why did she need to care about him? Him and his little dino had always gotten in her way, and she was sick of it.
Her D-Arc bleeped, and she took it from her belt, as Renamon appeared cautiously, making sure that her grandmother had gone beforehand.
"Let's go…" she told her partner, as the fox vanished. She walked through the house, and exited the door. "Going out Grandma…" she called.
Seiko smiled slightly. Maybe Rika was going to make up with the boy, to catch up with him before it was too late.
'Good luck…' she wished, although completely assuming the wrong thing.
Rika stepped from the orangey evening light into the Digital Field, not smiling at all as she removed her glasses and Renamon stepped in behind her. She lifted her D-Arc as Renamon focused on their new foe.
"Dokugumon, Virus Type, Champion Level, her attacks are Spider Thread, Poison Cobweb and Venom Blast…" she quoted monotonously.
Renamon raised an eyebrow at her lack of enthusiasm, before stepping forward to better look at their foe.
'Just another easy battle…' Rika thought, as she looked around the tree lined fog, a part of Shinjuku Park. Cobwebs appeared to have been placed around, and the spider-like Digimon crawled around on them.
"Rika, watch out!" Renamon called as she grabbed the redhead, flipped over and landed on the ground, a web sweeping past where Rika once stood. "Are you okay Rika?" she asked.
"Um…yeah…" Rika replied, surprised by the level of concern in Renamon's voice, as she heard Dokugumon approach.
"Perfect, I was looking forward to dinner…" Dokugumon mocked, crawling towards them.
"Time to step on a spider…" Renamon said, putting Rika down and leaping into the air, crossing her arms. "DIAMOND STORM!" she yelled, diamonds flying forth at the giant spider, who turned around.
"SPIDER THREAD!" she called, a web being fired from her rear that took out each and every diamond, before turning and opening her mouth, releasing a purple blast of poison. "VENOM BLAST!" she roared, as the blast hit Renamon in mid-air, causing her to lose control and latch onto a web, groaning in pain, enhanced by the fact she was dangling by her injured foot.
"Renamon, get out of there!" Rika called.
"Rika, you get out of there!" she replied in alarm, groaning in pain.
"SPIDER THREAD!" Dokugumon called once again, Rika looking up in horror as she was caught by it, beginning to squirm to escape the sticky web, to no avail.
"Rika!" Renamon called, her voice horse from the pain from both battles today.
Dokugumon advanced on Rika, who began to shiver in fear.
'Never be scared…never be scared…' Rika told herself, recalling what she had sworn, but it was no use, she couldn't stop her fear. She couldn't move to squirm and attempt to escape; she just stared into the eyes of her attacker.
She screamed as she saw fate look her in the eye, the worst fear imaginable, the fear that it'd all be over a short while from now.
And she had sent Renamon into that so many times.
"DIAMOND STORM!" Renamon yelled, Rika looking on in alarm and shock as the diamonds shot towards her, never expecting herself to be on this end of that attack. She closed her eyes and held herself tightly, as she heard the diamonds skim past her ear, but never actually touch her.
She opened her eyes, and looked herself over in surprise, before looking up to Renamon, unable to talk at first. "Renamon, you saved my life…" she said, realising what Renamon had done…after she'd almost made her lose her own life so many times in the past.
"Think again!" Dokugumon taunted, turning to the fox and crawling towards her.
"Rika, run now!" Renamon said, alarmed for Rika's safety.
"I'm not leaving you…" Rika said, her gaze locking with Renamon's, the first real compassion gaze they'd ever had, Rika smiling slightly as she drew a card. "DIGI-MODIFY…Snimon's Twin Sickles Activate!"
"Time to clean up some cobwebs!" her partner declared, as the blades of the creature appeared on her arms. She sliced herself free, leaping back and using her move. "TWIN SICKLES!" she yelled, sending two pink swathes of energy at the spider, who knocked them aside with her helm, before leaping forward.
"My turn again!" she declared, moving closer and closer to Renamon, opening her jaw and biting down on Renamon's mid-section, locking her in place, unable to move. Renamon groaned in pain as she felt more injuries added to her long list so far.
"Leave her alone!" Rika called, suddenly feeling care for her partner beyond simply winning the battle, but as a write.
"As you wish…" Dokugumon replied, hauntingly similar to many of Renamon's replies, before throwing the fox's body aside to land in even more webs than before, as the spider turned to face Rika once again.
"Rika…save yourself…" Renamon said weakly.
"VENOM BLAST!" the spider roared, a blast heading straight for a Rika paralysed in fear. Renamon suddenly appeared in front of Rika, looking into her eyes with care, before she groaned in pain, having protected her partner from the deadly blast with her own body.
"No!" Rika whimpered, seeing her partner barely able to stand, close to death. "Why'd you do it?"
"Because you're my partner…" Renamon replied, before collapsing to the ground, Rika grabbing her as she fell to give her a slower landing.
"I'm so sorry Renamon…" Rika said, truly sorry for all the pain she had caused her partner.
Calumon walked up to Rika, frowning as the symbol on his head glowed red. "Is it all over?" he asked.
"Rika…get away while you can…" Renamon said weakly.
"Don't go! Please don't leave me! You're my only friend!"
Her own words and Takato's echoed through her head.
"I just thought that maybe we could work together…you know, you've got a Digimon, I…had a Digimon…"
"Well…can you help me look for him?"
"No, I have better things to do…"
"I…had a Digimon…"
"I…had a Digimon…"
"I…had a Digimon…"
The words repeated over and over again in Rika's head, pain growing each time as she stared at her partner's helpless form.
"Renamon, don't leave me!" she said emotionally, bending over her.
"I have to…" Renamon replied, her voice weakening. "Please go…" she added, closing her eyes from the pain.
"Wait…you can't…" Rika said, close to tears.
Everything ran through her head at once as she felt so many emotions, compiled into a simple word said in a simple way.
"RENAMON!" she yelled, her D-Arc bursting into beams of light which enshrouded her, and began to make her partner glow.
Renamon moaned, opening her eyes as she felt energy flow into her.
DIGIVOLUTION
Renamon Digivolve to…
Renamon slashed at the air before her data was stripped from its wireframe, starting from her snout, tail, arms and legs and working towards her very core as a ball of dark blue data enshrouded her. The data began to reform on her extremities, as zaps of lightning collided with the ball, altering her form as a new data set was created and triggered. Nine yellow tails replaced one, and a white mane ran up her neck, her head forming as the data set created it, her blue eyes glowing with determination. She swung herself around, revealing her form, a yellow quadruped fox with nine tails and red and white charms around her neck, the bells at the end shining gold. As she swung her tails around, blue flames ignited on them and her feet, and burned brightly as she declared her title.
…Kyubimon!
"You digivolved…" Rika said in amazement. "But…how?" she asked, near speechless. "Even cards didn't work…"
"The cards had nothing to do with it; it was you Rika that unlocked this form…" Kyubimon replied.
"How?"
"You cared for me…and I care for you…" the fox answered, turning to pass a smile to the redhead, both smiling in the slightest way possible, but it still meant all the world to each of them.
"No more timewasting…SPIDER THREAD!" the Dokugumon yelled, turning and aiming her web to once again capture her foe.
Kyubimon closed her eyes as her tails lifted, pointing into a fan as the light dimmed and their blue flames roared louder.
"FOX TAIL INFERNO!" she called, as her tails flung forward, propelling their fires as they did so. The fires homed in on the threads around them, as well as that which had been fired at them, before turning and homing in on their foe from all directions.
Dokugumon panicked seeing her advantage literally burn away. "Not so fast!" she called, leaping forward off of her web as it burned away. Kyubimon leapt towards her.
"DRAGON WHEEL!" she called, balling up into a dragon of blue flames, which roared before enveloping Dokugumon with them.
Dokugumon's form split, as the flames broke apart her data. Kyubimon came out of her dragon-like form, before she glowed, her tails billowing as the data flowed into her. The Digital Field and the burning threads within it glowed, as Rika watched in amazement.
"Unbelievable…" she said, staring at her now champion-level partner, as her blue flames on her feet touched the ground, not burning it at all. They silenced, fading away completely, as Kyubimon smiled. The pinging sound of rain had begun to reach their ears, but Kyubimon and Rika were far too transfixed on what had just happened to notice their fur and clothes getting wet respectively.
"Now do you understand?" she asked.
"Yeah…now I understand what made Guilmon so powerful in battle…their friendship…they care for each other…"
"I believe that there was something else which contributed to that…"
"Hmm…maybe…" Rika pondered, considering what she had seen in previous battles, the sign on Guilmon's chest flashing. "I'm sorry for not caring about you…you're amazing, you're more than just data…" Rika said, placing her hand on Kyubimon's face. "You're a friend…" she added.
Kyubimon nodded, as Rika smiled, before raising an eyebrow.
"By the way, I didn't just admit that the Gogglehead is right…you are still going to absorb data, I don't see the remotest problem with it…but…"
"I feel wrong for trying to destroy that connection between Guilmon and his Tamer…after seeing it between us…"
"Yeah…I feel wrong about something else too…I almost lost you…and…it felt awful…painful…I was scared, for the first time in my life since my father left I was scared that I would lose someone, and back then, I didn't understand what was really going on…but…is this how Takato feels?"
Kyubimon frowned, nodding unsurely. Rika clenched her fist.
"It's time to find out what's really going on here…and help someone in the process…" Rika replied, before correcting herself to ensure that her partner, or anyone watching, didn't think she'd gone too soft. "But my main reason is to find out so that it doesn't happen to you too, got that?"
Kyubimon smiled, some things would take far longer to change. She nodded.
Impmon frowned in annoyance, watching from a tree above. "Yeuck…" he noted. "They've gone soft, with all the touchy-feely crap…" he complained, before leaving.
"Still, that was a great victory…" Rika noted, impressed by the complete clearance of all of the threads by her partner's fires.
"It wasn't the victory that mattered…you made me stronger by caring about me…you are a true friend…" Kyubimon replied.
'My only friend…' Rika thought, unsure if that was a good or a bad thing, as she nodded in response to what the fox had said. "Just don't tell Gogglehead about this chat…"
Kyubimon smiled and nodded, as Rika walked along her side, deciding to attempt something. She grabbed onto her partner's fur, causing the fox to give a curious expression before realising what Rika was trying, as she unsteadily threw her foot over the fox's back, grabbing on tight to the mane before she fell off that side. She checked that she was in place correctly; falling off on her first try was not what she intended to do.
"Ready?" the fox asked.
"Yeah" Rika replied.
The rain was felt by someone else, although emotionally rather than physically. A dejected Takato, hair wet and clothes damp, sat against the wall of the hideout, staring out into the rain pouring down outside. His tears were concealed by the water that remained on his face, his redness by the dark of the structure. Night had fallen, but Takato didn't feel remotely like going home. He didn't feel like doing anything.
He had failed.
He'd looked everywhere, trying to figure out where his partner had gone to. He'd pretty much been everywhere in Shinjuku Park, around his neighbourhood, even to the area around Hypnos at one point in a stupidly risky move, running everywhere at full pace despite his fatigue. He'd given up eventually, and retreated to the abandoned building he now sat in, its walls towering around him in size thanks to the absence of its usual occupant which brought some odd sense of scale to the place. His D-Arc sat in his hand, screen pressing against the ground.
Anger, depression, sadness, fear, he'd been through such a range of emotions in the past few hours that he couldn't even name some of them. But the emotion that now stained his heart was a deep one, yet strangely hollow at the same time. It was one that was hard to define, one that was rarely mentioned, one that could only be understood by those who had felt it.
Emptiness.
Guilmon had brought a sense of purpose to his life, as a friend, as a carer, as a Tamer, and he'd lost it all for absolutely no clear reason. It wasn't his lack of skill as a Tamer, it wasn't Guilmon running off, it wasn't a fall-out, Guilmon simply vanished, and Takato was pained to comprehend returning to the life without him.
Every day, waking up, going late to school, getting punished with a detention or otherwise by Mrs Asagi, going through the day doodling and learning nothing at all until he returned to the park, playing some now boring games of cards, going home and going to bed. Nothing exciting in his life, nothing interesting, no purpose.
And he had no way of getting that back. His one attempt to appeal to the one he hoped would be able to help had been fruitless, his search attempts failed, and he felt awful.
New tears streamed down his face, tired ones, as the long day set in and he felt weak. Emotionally, physically, mentally. He was sure that, had he been stronger, a better Tamer, a better thinker, even just more awake, he'd have thought of something, but he wasn't.
Guilmon didn't even have a chance to say goodbye.
Takato snivelled, his tears waning through exhaustion, as footsteps came to the opening to the hideout. If it wasn't Guilmon, and since Guilmon would've leapt at him by now, it wasn't, Takato didn't care who it was.
Rika paused, her cheery spirit from the battle vanishing upon seeing the state the boy was in. Kyubimon stood at the foot of the stone path, carefully watching out for anyone who would see her, in which case she would have to make a quick escape.
What was she meant to say? She didn't want to appear too caring, particularly not in front of the Gogglehead, but at the same time, she didn't want to be mean, it feeling like kicking him when he was down.
"Come on then…" she said, as the boy glanced up, a look of bewilderment adding to his existing one of grief.
"Huh?"
"Let's go find your dino…" she added, rolling her eyes slightly at how he hadn't understood her.
"Really?"
"I haven't got all night Gogglehead…" she insisted, grabbing his arm and dragging him up, feeling the effort ease as Takato stood up on his own. Rika turned, walking down the path, as Takato followed cautiously.
"But…why are you helping me?" Takato asked, unconsciously checking the sky for flying pigs.
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth Gogglehead…" Rika replied, climbing onto her partner's back, as Takato approached, his footing varying as he grappled with what was going on.
"Is that Renamon?" he asked in surprise, looking at the new form. Rika nodded proudly, as Takato raised his D-Arc. "Kyubimon, Data Type, Champion Level, attacks Fox Tail Inferno and Dragon Wheel…" he read.
"Don't you think I already know that?" Rika asked, cursing herself internally when she recalled she hadn't actually scanned her partner's new form with her own D-Arc earlier. Takato stepped up to the side of the fox, looking bewildered by how he would get on. Rika frowned, putting out her hand. Takato grabbed it, and Rika pulled him sharply up, displaying her irritation. "Are you finally ready?" she asked, annoyed tone in her voice as Takato tried to find something to grab onto.
"Yeah, I think so…" he replied nervously, as Kyubimon began to move.
"Oh and Gogglehead, get your hands off me…" Rika told him, as he blushed profusely, realising that he hadn't thought about what to hold onto before doing so. He quickly moved his hands from where they were around her waist, still blushing, to grab Kyubimon's fur, she groaning as he did so, pulling far too hard on the short fur. "Stop it!" Rika insisted. "Can't you do anything right?!" she asked, looking back to Takato, who looked nervously at her.
"What do I grab onto?" he asked, Rika glancing around. He did have a point, she was holding onto her partner's mane, which unfortunately ran out before reaching him, the fox's fur was too short, and there was pretty much nothing else for him to grab onto nearby. She considered the tails, inwardly chuckling at the idea of Takato holding on for dear life, before sighing as Kyubimon shook when leaping down some stairs, displaying the problem as she quickly grabbed his hand with her right. He falling to an injury wasn't worth the effort afterwards, despite the short term amusement of it.
"Grab my shoulders then…" she replied, already irritated by him. Was this such a good idea after all? Takato nervously placed his hands on her shoulders.
'Okay…don't do anything silly…you're doing this for Guilmon…' Takato thought, closing his eyes to try and concentrate to avoid causing further problems. He tried to get his train of thought back on the subject, and opened his eyes again, looking to Rika, which reminded him of why he had closed them. 'She told me to put my hands here…she isn't going to punch me…she isn't going to…who am I kidding? Okay, think about Guilmon…' "Where are we going?" he asked.
Rika frowned, looking to her partner. "I was trying to find some sense of a Digimon, but I have had no luck so far…"
"If he's really gone, where do you expect us to find him?" Rika asked Takato, who looked at her blankly, shrugging. She sighed, before noticing his D-Arc, a thought occurring to her. She put her hand out for it, grabbing it and looking at its screen.
"What are you doing?" Takato asked, as Rika tapped the button, bringing up a compass.
"Finding your partner…" she replied, as the arrow spun to settle on a direction. "Head to the left Kyubimon…" she ordered.
"Sir, the strange field is still in existence, and scans so far have brought up no more data on it…" Riley reported.
Yamaki frowned, clicking his lighter in annoyance, preparing a PDA below. "I'm sending a program to destroy it…" he ordered, setting up a program he had prepared that cleared away Digital Fields. Yuggoth currently only took out the Wild Ones themselves. The untested program could potentially harm its environment, but Yamaki clearly didn't concern for that sort of thing.
"Is that wise sir?" Tally asked. "Don't we want to find out what it is first?"
"I am doing what I said…" Yamaki snapped.
Riley frowned; they all knew that unapproved programs were forbidden by the rules governing Hypnos' activities. She only hoped that the book wouldn't come down too hard on him, and on them as well. Beyond physical damage, it could cause network damage as well, in some cases a far worse problem.
"What, there's nothing here?" Rika asked, having leapt off a waiting Kyubimon on a random street. Takato's D-Arc seemed to just point through a gate into a part of woodland that rose up into a hill, a door on the side of a concrete building in it.
"Hmm…the tunnel…" Takato noted, climbing clumsily off the fox, noticing some of the signs placed around it. Rika glanced to him curiously, nodding as she realised what he meant. They stepped forward, Rika turning in alarm at a static noise, Takato feeling his throat dry as he felt pangs of familiarity.
Sure enough, Kyubimon's legs were now blurred, like Guilmon before, and equally, the blur was growing.
"It's happening to her too…" Takato noted. Rika frowned; she didn't want to lose her partner so quickly.
"I'll call for you when I need you, okay?" she asked. Kyubimon nodded, stepping away before she would have vanished and moving out of sight. Takato nodded, smiling at what they had prevented, albeit reminded of Guilmon's own sudden disappearance. He stepped forward, carefully pushing open the door, which was oddly unlocked, and stepping into the strangely warmer, and thankfully drier, tunnels. There was a small flow of floodwater in them, the tunnel's primary purpose, but it was mostly empty and cavernous, as the pings of water echoed, along with a distant static noise. Rika stepped through the door soon after, as Takato moved to better look down the long tunnel, stretching away far beyond what could be seen into an inky blackness, what they could see dimly lit by lights along its walls.
"Wow, it must go on for miles…" Takato said, beginning to walk as Rika joined him.
"It better not, I'm only helping you thanks to Renamon, got that?" she asked.
"Sure…" Takato replied, noting in his mind that Renamon had convinced her to do so.
"Was that sarcasm?"
Takato held up his hands in defence as he turned nervous. "No, I didn't mean it like that…" he apologised.
"Seriously, what is your deal? Sometimes, when you stand up to me, it looks like you've got a backbone, but the rest of the time you freeze up at the first sign of a threat…"
"I've no idea…" Takato replied, before asking a question that had bugged me. "Speaking of that, yesterday, you said that I was off your list of people you'd think twice about before attacking…why was I on the list?"
"It was a figure of speech Gogglehead…" Rika replied, sighing.
"So…are you going to keep attacking us, even after I get him back?"
Rika snorted, not wanting to give him an obvious answer. "You're not worth it anymore…" she replied.
Takato smiled slightly, glad that he didn't have to worry about that anymore, but still plenty of things bugged me.
"So…can we please work together? You know, like as a team of Tamers?"
"There are only two of us Takato, so not exactly a team…"
"I know but…what do you say?"
"I'm not getting into one of your silly fantasises about Digimon Tamers and everything, maybe we'll fight alongside each other in battle, but I'm not promising you anything…"
"That'll be great…" he replied, thankful for what he had managed, before deciding to shut up. He decided to get back to their current task, as he noticed a strange mass of ice-cube like blobs moving in the distance, jumping back slightly in surprise. Rika smirked.
"See what I mean? You jump at the first sign of any danger, you're such a wimp…" she said. Takato bit his lip, striding forward with determination.
"I bet Guilmon's in there…" he asserted, walking towards the mass.
"If I get injured from this…" Rika warned, following him as they got closer and closer, coming to a stop in front of it. "How can you be sure anyway?"
"I just know it, okay?" Takato replied, Rika frowning at his lack of any visible reason. "I can feel that he's in there…"
Takato's D-Arc suddenly burst into life, a burst of light shooting out from it as it began to beep uncontrollably. Rika's began glowing to match, as she took it out, looking at it in surprise. Takato held his out, pointing it into the energy field.
"What the hell is this?"
"Maybe the digivice connects us to our partners?" Takato suggested.
"The show isn't real!" Rika insisted.
"Everything up until now has proved otherwise…" Takato joked, recalling that he had a Digimon partner, that these were real Digimon that he was dealing with.
"Whatever…let's see how the blob reacts…" Rika dismissed, before putting out her D-Arc's beam to her front, pointing into the field. Takato nodded, copying, as a path split through it.
"It worked!" Takato exclaimed. "Guilmon, I'm coming!" he cheered, running into the field. Rika looked on in shock, before deciding to follow. There was a huge risk that she'd never make it out, but her curiosity wouldn't let her stay back, and neither would her insistence on not letting the Gogglehead get one-up on her. She flipped on her sunglasses, running forward.
"Stupid…" she muttered, as she suddenly felt the ground give way, beginning to float.
"Waaah!" Takato exclaimed, surprised at what was happening.
"Idiot…" Rika noted, cursing herself for following the Gogglehead in there. Takato glanced to her, before raising his Goggles to get a better look at something he saw behind.
"I think I see Guilmon!" he said, before miming swimming, a ridiculous-looking act that surprisingly worked, as he began to move. Rika frowned, before she began to copy him.
"This is crazy…"
"Yeah, it's like in my dreams…"
"Do you ever have any normal dreams?" Rika asked. Takato ignored her as he noticed something up ahead, a burst of red in a sea of pale blues and whites.
"Guilmon!" Takato called, swimming over to his partner, who was suspended by strange cords of data, looking unconscious. "Wake up!" he called.
"Three more hours…" the dino muttered, opening his eyes narrowly. Rika stifled a smile at the reunion as Takato grabbed Guilmon, smiling happily as his eyes watered. She wasn't going to be that soft, particularly not on such a sappy act.
"Don't worry; I'll get you out of there…"
"How exactly?" Rika asked. "We're floating in god knows what, and we don't exactly have any pairs of scissors…"
"Don't be so pessimistic!" Takato insisted. "We'll figure out a way!"
"We're detecting some unknown data patterns in the field…" Riley reported.
"Delete everything!" Yamaki insisted. "Leave not a trace of it remaining…"
Suddenly, a burst of noise and light hit the field, as it began to disintegrate. Rika swam over to the pair quickly.
"We don't have much time!" she insisted, as he began to panic.
"What can we do?!" Takato asked.
"I don't know but hurry up, it's being erased!" Rika insisted. Guilmon suddenly struggled, the cords breaking as his claw pierced it. Takato pulled him into a hug.
"I thought I was going to lose you…" he said happily.
"It's going to get us! This is all your fault!" Rika insisted, distracting their reunion.
"Hey, you followed me in here!" Takato replied.
"Yeah, but if you and your stupid partner hadn't…" Rika began, pausing, and frowning. "…but…it's not your fault…" she replied, trying to be kinder as she recalled her partner's words. "But what do we do?" she asked, panicking as the field shrunk in size dramatically every second.
"It is…" Takato replied, anger in his voice. "I dragged us all in here, I let myself lose Guilmon because I wasn't strong enough to stop him…but we made it this far, and I'm not losing now!" he insisted, as his D-Arc glowed. Rika looked on in shock, Takato turning to similar shock upon glancing, as Guilmon flashed red, the bright red remaining in his eyes and the mark on his chest as the rest died away.
"What's happening?!" Rika said in alarm, fearful for what she had seen in the past when Guilmon glowed.
"Guilmon, are you okay?" Takato asked, himself fearful.
"I feel weird…" Guilmon replied, as the bright red returned, expanding from him, as Takato and Rika screamed when it reached them.
"What?!" Yamaki asked, as suddenly the screens blanked out, replaced with a black screen and a huge symbol, one that he had never seen before, except on that dinosaur that was the boy's partner.
"Power levels in the field are increasing erratically…" Tally quoted.
"Your program has been destroyed…" Riley noted, a tinge of 'I told you so' in her voice.
The emergency lights flickered on as the room plunged into darkness. The pair typed away at their keyboards, to no avail.
"The system has completely crashed…" Tally noted.
Yamaki growled, slamming the bank of computers with his hand. "Stupid Digimon!" he complained.
"The energy field is gone…" Tally reported, as the computers gradually rebooted, one system at a time. "It was erased by whatever that power was…"
'Maybe if we could harness that energy…it completely eradicated that energy field…' Yamaki thought.
Takato gently opened his eyes, feeling woozy all of a sudden. He felt a heavy weight on his back, and everything seemed dark, the emergency lights having presumably gone off.
Takato then realised that his head was buried in Rika's shirt, as he felt the fabric. She glared at him as he moved his face, but Guilmon's weight on top of him was painful.
"Guilmon, move!" Takato yelled, as the dinosaur tumbled off him, Takato making a quick (and blushing heavily) move away from what would now be an even worse hazard than he'd ever imagined. Rika looked at him angrily, glaring at him.
"Takatomon, why has your face turned as red as mine?" the dinosaur asked innocently.
"Um…sorry…" Takato said feebly.
Rika "hmph'ed", and crossed her arms. "What the hell happened there anyway?!" she asked, annoyed at the pair, Takato more than Guilmon (despite the fact he seemed to have no involvement in Guilmon's…whatever it was).
"Um…the world kinda…exploded…" Takato replied, glancing around the tunnel, which seemed to have no evidence of the strange field that once dominated this particular part of it.
"Your dino…he glowed, you saw it!" Rika yelled, amazed at Takato's complete randomness, and how he seemed to manage things without even trying.
"Yeah…I did…" Takato replied, turning to his partner. "What happened there?" he asked.
"I don't know…" Guilmon replied, Takato seeing in his eyes that he really had no clue.
"He's done that before too…" Rika noted, crossing her arms. "What is wrong with him?" she asked.
"I know as much as you do…" Takato replied, shrugging. Rika groaned, walking down the tunnel.
"I'm sick of this place, let's go…" she told him.
Takato yawned, standing in the park, Rika nearby, having surprisingly followed him for some reason, but he decided (for once) to keep his mouth shut and count his blessings.
Rika looked to him, having surprised herself by following him, although the distance to had been quite short, so she wasn't going to object to it, particularly since she used Kyubimon, leaving him to walk and her to inwardly chuckle at him. Plus, she was eager to find out about Guilmon's power, and hoped she'd at least get a clue.
"Quit yawning and tell me what's wrong with Guilmon…you must know something…" she asked.
"I really don't, he just…he somehow has this power…" he replied.
Rika frowned in annoyance. "Look, you drive me crazy, but I'm also not stupid enough to miss an opportunity to find out more here, so I'm going to give you my cell phone number…definitely not my home number, my Grandma isn't continuing her crazy mad ideas that we're boyfriend and girlfriend…" she told him, putting out her hand. "Give me a piece of paper…"
Takato looked at her curiously, before reluctantly passing his notebook and a pencil. She wrote on it, before pausing and glaring at him.
"Now, this number is only for something real…not for if you want to 'hang out', not for if you need 'advice', only if something big happens, and you better call me if it does, or the next time I see you…" she punched her fist into her hand to demonstrate, smirking when he gulped. 'He is funny…just not in his jokes…' she thought.
"Okay…" he replied, putting his hand out to take it as she passed it to him. She paused, something catching her eye as she took it back, flicking through the pages with bewildered eyes. "What are you doing?" Takato asked nervously.
Rika's eyebrows rose as she found a picture of Guilmon, notes on it. She glanced up to him bewildered, as she moved through the pages. "What is this?" she asked.
"Um…it's the pages of notes and pictures that my D-Arc scanned to make Guilmon's digi-egg…" Takato replied.
"So you really created him then?"
"Um…yeah, somehow…"
Rika flicked to the next page, before looking at her in surprise. "What the hell, this page is just scribbles?!"
"Yeah, I got kinda bored…it scanned that page too for some reason…I don't think it did anything…at least, I hope not…"
Rika frowned, passing him back the notebook. "Now, your number…"
"Um, I don't have a cell phone…"
"Then put down your home number and give me the damn bit of paper so I can go home…"
Takato nodded, quickly writing it out, ripping the previously-blank page from the book and passing it to her. She put the sheet in her pocket, before turning and walking away.
"See ya Gogglehead…" she said, waving slightly with one hand.
"Yeah, see ya…" Takato replied, as Kyubimon followed her Tamer.
"Bye Renamon!" Guilmon called dumbly, receiving nothing but a grunt from the fox.
'So are we friends…or fellow Tamers…or what? This is getting really confusing…' Takato thought.
"You were really brave in there…" Guilmon noted.
"Yeah, you too…hopefully I'll keep being like that, looks like things are unfortunately going to get scarier around here…." '…Rika being even this friendly is terrifying enough…'
"Yeah…" Guilmon answered.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Right, as for the whole update situation, since I've ended up with a backlog of chapters for Dimensions, only publishing one a day even though at one point I was writing two, I've been able to concentrate on this with my spare time.
However, since this 12500 word Deviations chapter has taken two days to write on its own (longest chapter ever), expect a bit of a slower upload rate for both fics after Chapter 12 of Dimensions (although Chapter 14 doesn't need much more to finish, after which I'll be able to put up Chapter 13). I'll try to get another chapter of this done by Sunday, but don't hold your hopes up.
Anyway, I hope you liked this interesting attempt at splicing two episodes into one (I certainly enjoyed writing it), and normal service will be resumed next time (well, as normal as a 'What If' fic can be anyway).
Next time…
How are Takato and Rika going to work together, if at all? What's up with Guilmon? And most importantly of all, is Rika really going to be nicer from now on?
Find out in 'Dates, Demons and Digivolutions', Chapter Six of Deviations.