Chapter 6

Ricardo

"Davis, stop laughing!"

"Oh come on! This is hilarious! Let's wake him up."

Having just woken up themselves, Davis and Ken currently lay twisted around in their seats discussing the sleeping third member of their trio.

Davis couldn't wipe the smirk off his face. "Please, Ken, we'll have to eventually." He got his phone out and began fiddling with it.

"What are you doing?" Ken inquired.

"We need to get this on tape. Alright ready?" He reached forward roughly shaking his sleeping friends shoulder.

TK, half awake, grunted and attempted to turn on his side away from the force trying to keep him from his peaceful slumber, but as he turned a high pitched, shrill sound erupted from a nearby source. Alarmed the blonde bolted upright and looked around for the noise. After a few seconds, blue eyes met black and he let out a terrified scream before attempting to leap away but ended up only banging his head on the inside of the car door.

The black eyes belonged to none other than the macaque from the night before.

Davis collapsed roaring with laughter but kept his phone up the whole time. "That was great! Oh, I'm so glad I recorded that, the look on your face!" Davis buried his mouth into his pillow trying to stifle his laughter, so he could breathe properly again.

TK stayed on the far end of the back seat rubbing his sore head, panicked. "Ken, why is the monkey here? Get it out!"

Ken spoke trying to hide his amusement from the whole ordeal, "Seeing as the side door is open, I think he got in and decided to take a nap on you."

Davis stopped laughing long enough to reach his arm forward towards the monkey. "Relax, Teeks, I bet he's friendly."

"Or he's about to bite you," Ken offered watching the creature sniff Davis's arm before climbing onto it.

"See, friendly," The brunette concluded as the monkey began climbing on him like a jungle gym. "I think I'll call you… Ricardo!"

"You're naming that beast?"

Ken raised an eyebrow, "You're naming it Ricardo?"

"Of course, Ricardo's such a good name! I wish my name was Ricardo." The newly dubbed Ricardo climbed off Davis and back over to TK who pressed himself as far back into the car door as he could. "Is someone afraid of the baby monkey?"

"No," TK protested, but his voice quavered as he watched the baby monkey crawl over to him on all fours.

Davis ordered, "Just shake Ricky's hand so the two of you can be friends."

"Ricky?"

"Yes, Ricky, everyone needs a nickname, Kenneth."

"Point taken," Ken finalized.

TK looked into the monkey's eyes. It didn't look unfriendly, and besides, TK had befriended plenty of digimon that were ten times scarier looking than Ricardo. The blonde sighed and forced himself to hold out his hand. The creature sniffed it and stared before putting his own hand up to TK's as TK tried not to flinch away and slowly brought his hand up and down bringing Ricardo's with it.

Davis looked satisfied. "See? Now we're all friends! Welcome aboard, Ricky!" And with that, Davis turned around, threw his pillow to the floor, and buckled his seat belt. "Let's drive, Ken."

But Ken failed to make any attempt at driving. "We can't just take a wild animal out of its natural habitat."

Davis frowned, "But he came to us, he broke into the car, and if he wants to leave right now, the door he came in through is wide open."

Ken gestured from the monkey to the door. "Go on, get out of here! We're leaving now!" But the monkey didn't try to leave and instead crawled over to Ken and wrapped its furry arms around the top of his head.

"He doesn't want to go," Davis said.

Ken sighed defeatedly. "Fine, we can keep the monkey!"

Davis cheered, "Great!"

TK muttered sarcastically, "Oh great."

Just then, a loud rumble erupted from Davis.

"Hungry much?" Ken asked while prying the monkey off of him.

Davis groaned, "We haven't eaten!"

"I hear monkey meat is good."

"TK!" Ken reprimanded before turning to Davis. "You find some food. I'm going to the bathroom." He left the monkey on his seat, opened his door, stretched, and walked a few yards away behind some trees.

Davis tapped the side of his goggles. "Find some food? Like out in the woods?"

"I think he meant-"

"If you say anything about Ricardo-"

"I was going to say," TK continued, "that there's probably food in the cooler Ken brought."

Davis rolled his eyes. "Then he wouldn't ask me to find it, he would ask me to retrieve it."

The blonde blinked. "…What?"

"The point is that we're going to go hunting."

TK cleared his throat indicating Davis's new pet.

"Or, uh, gathering! No hunting here." The brunette smiled sheepishly as the monkey let out a high pitched call at the words.

"Whee! Whee!"

The two friends held their ears to muffle the noise.

"That's going to get annoying fast," Davis muttered. "Anyway, let's roll."

They got out of the car with Ricardo perched, alert, on Davis's shoulder.

"What is he? A watch dog?" TK sneered.

Davis looked amused. "Hey, without our digimon here we could use a watch dog. Now, how do we find food in a forest?"

TK suggested, "I bet there are berries around here somewhere."

Davis craned his neck to meet the eyes of his small companion. "Which way are the berries, Ricky?"

The monkey got up on two legs and did a full turn before sitting back down in a new direction then from before.

Davis shrugged. "Can't argue with that."

"Actually we can."

"Yeah but what's the point?"

Giving in, TK reluctantly followed Davis, and they ended up in a clearing. Ricardo suddenly began calling out, alarming the boys. About six or seven macaques, all bigger than Ricardo, came out into the open and began staring down the trio.

"Ricky must want us to tell them he's going with us!" Davis reasoned.

Upon TK's eyes meeting one of the macaques, it showed its teeth. "D-do they look angry?"

"Hmm? Nah, they just want to know that Ricky was taken to a safe home." Davis took a few steps forward and held his arms out while addressing the macaques. "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!"

TK face palmed. "Please no."

Davis surveyed the animals. They didn't seem to be interested in him anymore. "Hey, I'm talking over here!" He then noticed Ricardo had left his shoulder and was running back towards the car.

"Whee! Whee!"

"Did he sound scared to you?" TK asked.

"But scared of wha- TK WATCH OUT!"

"AAAAUGGHHHH!" TK yelped dodging out of the way of a full grown macaque before bolting out of there in the direction Ricardo had gone.

Davis followed suit screaming incoherent sentences about a monkey apocalypse.

They sprinted all the way back to the car, dove into their seats and slammed and locked their doors.

Ken sat in the driver's seat, flabbergasted. "Where were you?"

Davis failed at explaining due to still being out of breath. "Ricky…We…They…angry… teeth…monkey apocalypse."

TK stopped panting for a moment and ordered, "They could still being coming! Drive, Ken!"

The genius made no attempt to drive, still putting the pieces together. "The macaques were angry at you? They probably weren't chasing you as soon as you left their area."

TK scowled. "You weren't there. They were mad."

Davis began searching around, suddenly remembering. "Hey, is Ricky here?"

Ken nodded indicating that the baby monkey on the floor by the gas pedal. "He got here before you did."

Davis smiled contently and leaned back. "Great, we're all here! Let's get out of this monkey infested death trap!"

"Whee! Whee!"

"Uh, sorry."

...

Just saying, Ricky had a very minor role in the first draft of this story and as soon as I added him as a major character, I had a dream my best friend brought a monkey to school, and I had to carry him around all day.

Also, even though the Digital World is mentioned and will come into play in this story, their digimon won't.

I got to the part of a macaque attacking them and after research realized if the macaque got a hold on one of them it would probably start biting which would call for medical attention which would call for a change in the story line, so the "attack" became kind of non-existent.