Rika, Queen of the South
Chapter 3: The Women Who Killed a God
The course of history is changed, and soon it will change even further.
This mostly uses material from the animes, with bits from the rest of the universe, but if you're like me and only watched the shows, don't worry; I've kept you in mind when writing this.
By the time Rika had finished reminiscing on the first time she and Renamon biomerged, the Pegasusmon-flown chariot had arrived at its destination: The stadium that would house today's events. The commotion from the Digimon in attendance was music to her ears, even when they weren't cheering for her, for their attendance reminded her of how much influence she had over them. The chariot flew into the stadium and over the crowd's heads, and applause sounded at the arrival of their rulers. They landed beside a pair of thrones overlooking the playing field and stepped out, looking proudly over their subjects before taking their seats.
Rika rested her chin on her hand as an Etemon nearby raised a microphone to announce, "Okay, okay, everymon! Our mighty queens have arrived, and that means it's time for the third-year anniversary tournament to begin! Now let's meet this year's challengers!"
The applause returned as the doors to the center of the stadium opened, and in marched the Digimon who would be fighting this year. The eight best and strongest in her territory...who weren't already actively serving in her army.
Actually, the plan had been for the final eight to fight for the championship and claim a prestigious spot in the army, but a very unexpected, but hardly unwelcome, surprise had awaited Rika when she heard who was entering the preliminaries, and the number in the finals had expanded to ten. She watched with a smile as the Digimon filed in...one of whom was accompanied by two fourteen-year-old humans. She was on better terms with tamers than the former ruler was - in the sense that she was less hostile to them - but she hadn't expected any tamers to enter, but not only had some entered and had done quite well, they were people she knew from when she lived on Earth.
Ai, Mako, and Impmon.
Rika hadn't gotten to know them well, but she still felt some empathy for them. Like her and Rumiko, Ai and Mako didn't get along well with their parents either, only they didn't have an understanding grandmother, and Impmon was their answer to their need for a friend. Like her and Renamon, they had lost each other for a time, only to reunite with a stronger bond than ever. Of course, being only four at the time of becoming tamers, they were spared much of the hardship that came with such a burden and were allowed to ease into it over the years. During her time on Earth, Rika and Renamon had gotten along all right with them, better than they did with the other tamers at least, but once Rika left for the Digital World some six years ago, she lost track of them as she did with everyone else.
From what she heard, they were growing up into a formidable trio, but if they had one problem, it was a lack of cooperation with other tamers. They worked great with each other, but despite having the supervision of older tamers and adults, they gradually came to enjoy battling perhaps a little too much. Rika was no psychologist, but she could imagine this was probably why most tamers had at least hit the low double digits in age at the time of receiving a D-Power: It might...do things to children as young as these two were.
Still, they had lasted ten years as a tamer trio, and while they hadn't sold themselves into servitude and been thrust into war like Rika had, if there were any tamers she had a good feeling about serving her, it was them. Reportedly, they had even smiled when they were told that Queen Rika had allowed them to enter the tournament as a trio under the condition that all their battles be fought with all three of them in the ring at once. She knew from experience that danger couldn't always be met head-on, but she had no time for cowardice, and their courage and unity reminded Rika of herself and Renamon even more.
As the combatants assembled in the center, Renamon spoke to her, "Still keeping an eye on your favorites?"
She laughed softly. "You know I don't play favorites with those who serve me. Those who do well are rewarded; those who disappoint are punished." She knew Renamon was right, though: She wanted those three to win.
The Etemon announced, "All right! Everyone's here, so let's get this show started! You all know the rules, but a friendly reminder of the two most important! Rule one: You win if you knock 'em out or if they quit, but no killing! Not here, anyway; survivors are still useful! Rule two: Keep it in or over the field; we like having a live audience!" He turned to Rika and Renamon, bowing his head. "With your word, my queens!"
Renamon gestured for him to proceed, with Rika adding, "You may begin."
Spinning back around, he called out, "You heard her! First battle: Ai, Mako and Impmon versus SkullSatamon! Everyone, take your places!"
As the combatants got into place, Rika's smile became more of a knowing grin. She wanted to give those three her full attention when they reached the final, which she hoped they would. "Give 'em Hell, kids," she muttered.
No sooner had Kuzuhamon reached the Southern Palace than a gout of fire came racing at her before she could even go inside. The fused Digimon flew aside and looked up to its source, seeing the bright red form of Zhuqiamon already zooming towards her. She smiled a little at seeing she already had his attention, and as he approached, she could see the pure disgust on his face.
"YOU TWO!"
His claws and beak raked against her staff in a quick flurry of blows.
"You'd not only turn against me, but you'd become THIS blasphemous thing to do it?!"
She gave a strained chuckle as sparks flew when their weapons clashed.
"You call it blasphemous; I call it beautiful."
Dodging his claws, she knocked aside his beak jabbing at her.
"You couldn't break us before, and you can't do it now."
She swung back, narrowly missing as he flapped his wings hard enough to push them away from each other. Hovering in place, they readied themselves for their next move, which came quickly as the Sovereign reared his head back.
"I knew it was only a matter of time before you would rise against me. This changes nothing."
Wisps of flame flickered around his beak. She wound up her swing as her staff glowed pink.
"Either way, your deviance will be wiped from the worlds! PHOENIX FIRE!"
"SPIRIT SLASH!"
With a clash of fire and light, the battle between former master and servant began. They threw everything they had at each other, leaving the land around the palace crisscrossed with scorched rubble. The biomerged Digimon and the Sovereign seemed evenly matched; every new burn on Kuzuhamon was answered with a new slash on Zhuqiaomon. As the intensity of the battle grew and the palace itself had fresh holes blasted through it, so too grew the distinction between their fighting styles.
The phoenix was hardly a pushover in melee combat, but it was clear that Kuzuhamon had the edge there, with enough skill to block or riposte his claws and beak, and she was also fast enough to keep up with him. He, meanwhile, learned that her only ranged attack was her Spirit Slash, which he could match with any of his own blasts of fire, and she could see he was trying to fight from a distance, where she had the disadvantage.
Just as she hoped he would.
Once she was sure she had him convinced he could win if he fought at a distance, during one of their melee exchanges, she allowed him to win a struggle in which he came away with her staff in his claws...and for good measure, let him land a hit with his beak on her face that knocked her to the ground, leaving half of her mask cracked off to expose a black-colored, violet-irised eye and a lock of black hair. The fused Digimon covered her face as she looked up at Zhuqiaomon, who rose higher into the sky with a flap of his wings.
"Now, it's time for you to disappear!"
He spread his wings and spheres of flame appeared at their ends. Kuzuhamon smiled almost manically at the sight; this was the moment she'd been waiting for. Time to lay it all on the line and find out who was the most fit to rule. Time to play her trump card and show off her other half! Clapping her hands together, she focused on the image she could envision so clearly, something which had never existed before but she knew it was there.
"Kuzuhamon, mode change to..."
Zhuqiaomon's wings flapped.
"BLAZING HELIX!"
Rivers of fire spiraled down from him towards his former servant. Instead of being worried, she was only encouraged, ready to meet him head-on as she summoned her other half. She glowed with the light of digivolution, but instead of elevating her power, she felt it being reshaped.
The staff held in Zhuqiaomon's claws dissolved, as did her armor, which was replaced by clothes like those of a traditional shrine maiden: A white kosode top, a worn-looking black hakama skirt, and the paper-streamer-ended gohei wand of Shinto rituals. The newly-intact purple fox mask completed the ensemble.
"Miko Mode!"
As the streams of fire raced towards her, she focused her mind, ready to show off her new power. From the small of her back, purple light gleamed, then started to take shape, spreading into individual beams of light like the petals of a blooming flower. Just before the fire reached her, she swung her wand to one side, and following the gesture, the light beams swung in front of her and suddenly became solid. Fox tails, nine of them springing from her back, covered in purple fur and each several times as long as she was tall, formed a barrier between her and the fire, long enough to completely enclose her as they wrapped around her multiple times.
When Kuzuhamon could no longer hear or feel the flames around her, she swung her wand to the other side, unwrapping her tails with a whoosh of wind as they flew open. The phoenix in the sky looked even more livid, if that was possible. She smiled and leaned back, one of her tails curling under her and forming a seat as she made a beckoning gesture with her free hand, inviting him to attack her again as she called out to him.
"Is that the extent of my lord's power? Had I known it would be this easy, I would have unfused and let you watch Rika and Renamon kiss before I dethroned you!"
He screeched with rage, spreading his wings and preparing to attack again, the balls of summoned flame glowing even brighter than before. She laughed softly, both at how this was going just as she expected and at the idea she had just given herself, before she rose to her feet and stood on the tail that had been her chair, now serving as a platform, and pulled her arm back as if to wind up a swing of her wand. Her other tails glowed purple brightly enough to look like beams of light again and twisted around each other in pairs, turning eight tails into four, and pointed at the sky like snakes ready to strike.
"Now let's get this over with, I've got a world to rule in your place!"
With another screech, he flapped his wings with all his might, sending more, even brighter streams of fiery death at her. She swung her wand forward, and her tails shot up at them, lengthening until they met his fire halfway, and a rain of embers burst from where they collided. The head-on clash of power continued, their respective attacks pressing back and forth against each other in an even match.
Well, almost even. It wasn't like Kuzuhamon was using all of her tails. Yet.
Kuzuhamon grinned, her free hand pointing into the ground. Her last tail, which until now had been a platform, joined her other tails with its purple glow, whipped up and thrust itself into the ground as she floated up to hover just barely above it. It tunneled through the rock while, up above, fire and tails whipped against each other. His gaze was still fixed on her through the smoke and sparks, and spread his wings to attack again.
Now was the moment.
Her ninth tail burst from the ground behind him and raced skyward, just as he prepared his attack, and before he could blast more fire at her, with a sharp crack, the tail wrapped around his neck.
"Ghack- what?!"
Her grin widened enough to let her teeth show as the fire her tails had been blocking died down, and she swung her wand forward again. Her tails separated from each other and shot towards him, and a multitude of whip cracks later, had bound his wings, legs, and beak...and no longer able to keep himself aloft, plummeted to the ground, headfirst thanks to her tails aiming him, and crashed with enough force to leave a crater in his wake.
Still holding him in place despite his struggles, Kuzuhamon floated towards him, lifting him up and slamming him back into the ground a few more times for good measure. As Kuzuhamon, she was a powerful and skilled enough melee fighter to overtake even this Sovereign in a toe-to-toe battle, but was lacking in ranged attacks. But she felt she had the option to change the nature of her power to this alternate form, when she was physically slower and weaker but, with these nine new, long and versatile limbs, she had many more options for long-range combat and, while Zhuqiaomon was too tough for her to simply crush him with her tails, they were also good for holding someone still while she took the time to finish them off another way.
"Now, it's time to cleanse the worlds of your taint."
He gave her such a sharp glare that for a moment she expected fire to shoot out from his eyes. Easily corrected when the tail encircling his neck twisted further to cover his eyes.
With the phoenix not going anywhere, she started to walk in a circle around him, repeating a mystical chant as she waved her wand back and forth and regularly pulled out ofuda from her sleeves and held them up between the two of them, where they floated in midair while she continued walking, forming a ring of the tags around him. As her footsteps took her back in front of him, he struggled harder as if he had an idea of what was coming. She stopped and turned to face him, pulling out one final ofuda, this one meant to be the guide and anchor for the power she was about to channel. Ceasing her chant, with a flick of her wrist, she tossed the tag on his forehead.
"How appropriate. It all ends in fire for you."
She reached into the depths of her being to focus her power on him and swung her wand to one side. When she became Kuzuhamon, she already knew how much power she had and the nature of it, despite never having used it before, just as most Digimon were aware of their own attacks and abilities even right after first digivolving to a new level. That included knowing of this alternate form's mightiest attack, which, like many magical rituals, was too time-consuming to use in a heated battle but was commensurately more powerful. That was another way her tails very much came in handy.
Another swing of her wand.
"CLEANSING FIRE!"
The floating ofuda exploded with purple fire, and gouts of the flames shot from them and converged on the phoenix, who was bathed in the magical flame. He let out muffled shrieks as he struggled harder than ever to free himself, but she held him fast as she kept pouring more power into this attack. The more he fought, the harder she tightened her grip; in her excitement, all she could think about was how he wasn't trying to kill her anymore, he was just fighting to save himself now.
She almost laughed openly when his body slowly began to dissolve. She'd fought so hard and waited so long to see this. He continued burning away as if she had lit the fire on his funeral pyre...never mind, she couldn't hold in her laughter anymore at that thought.
Half of him was consumed by her flames. This was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen. It really was so appropriate that he ended in fire. In her fire, which would replace his.
Almost...there...
There was so little of him left that her tails couldn't hold onto him anymore, giving him just enough time to let out one final screech before, at last, the phoenix had been burned away, leaving a great cloud of scattered data floating above the pool of purple flames.
Kuzuhamon stopped concentrating on her attack, and the fires died down while she laughed even harder. Spreading her arms, she stood before what was left of her former master.
"Come to me, the new, rightful ruler of the South!"
The cloud blew to her, funneling itself into her heart, and the sensation was...indescribable. It was so different than loading the data of just any Digimon; that gave a feeling of empowerment like how humans felt after some good exercise, just without the fatigue. But this...if she could compare it to anything, it was like her whole body had been set ablaze, but instead of harming her, she felt so energetic!
With a victorious cry as the last of the data loaded into her, that feeling rebounded back outward. If she had compared herself to a star before, she would have to find something new to compare herself to now. She didn't just feel like she had burst into flames; now she actually did. She erupted with purple and red flames, with stripes of red streaking across the her formerly all-purple hakama, mask, and tail fur, and yet another pair of new limbs erupted from her back in the form of red-feathered wings.
And. Oh. The. Power.
All she could do was howl with laughter from the rush of her long-awaited victory, of her plans coming to fruition, of truly getting the ball rolling on becoming the strongest...of everything.
She didn't even stop laughing when a flash of blue light in the sky behind her, giggling while she looked over her shoulder, already guessing who it was.
"No! I'm too late..."
"Hahaha...no, Azulongmon, you're not."
She turned to face the massive dragon, who looked down at her with a mix of scorn and worry, and pointed at herself.
"You have the honor of being the first to look at the woman...women...who did something impossible. Several impossible things, and killing a god and taking his place is just the latest!"
He shook his head.
"Zhuqiaomon wasn't the only Sovereign keeping an eye on you. I warned him that he had lost your loyalty when he forbade you two to be together, but I had hoped to recognize when it was time to intervene before it reached this point, when you subverted the order of the Digital World."
"Hardly. The Sovereign of the South has been replaced: The queens Rika and Renamon will be ruling the South now, so we can start by addressing each other as equals. Maybe you can help by suggesting a name for this form...how about QueenKuzuhamon? Or is thwarting me your goal as well?"
"Naturally, you don't even realize what you've done, thinking that all you have to do now is...nothing, just staying here to rule in his stead."
She laughed again. Of course he would be afraid of her now. She had slain his equal, and now her power had risen to even greater heights by absorbing his data.
"I've done what I want and proved how unbreakable I am."
She pointed behind him.
"So, if you haven't come to congratulate me or welcome me as your fellow Sovereign, I'm already finished talking to you. Tell the other Sovereigns that I'm willing to be diplomatic as long as they are, but I've fought too hard and suffered too much to yield a single bit of my hard-earned victory."
He shook his head again, sighing as he turned to leave.
"I simply want to avoid unnecessary conflict, but do not assume this is out of pacifism. Likewise, you may sit on his throne, but do not assume Zhuqiaomon will be gone forever."
"I am allowing you to leave now. When you're ready to use that boundless wisdom of yours to recognize my success, you can talk to me again."
With that, he was gone. Alone again, Kuzuhamon let out one more "heh" before her wings and the red streaks across her clothes and tails vanished, and with a flash of purple light, she became two again. Renamon stood before Rika, her usual calmness a pleasant contrast to Rika's eager smile.
"Well handled, my queen."
"Well said, Renamon."
"Now, as the first to formally welcome the new ruler of the South, I am at your service."
"Hahaha...then, as my first act as queen, watch as I welcome the last person I ever bend my knee to..."
She took Renamon's hand and knelt before her, smiling even wider as Renamon's brow raised slightly.
"And name you as my wife and fellow queen."
Renamon paused while Rika awaited her answer. Not that she could imagine anything but an affirmative...and yet, there was a small surprise in store for her.
"I was so sure you'd want a church wedding, though."
Now it was Rika's turn to pause, before Renamon arched an eyebrow and the dry humor in the joke hit her, making her double over with laughter. Once she could look up and speak again...
"Ahhh, ha, hoo...oh we are going to have such a good life...that was a 'yes,' right?"
"As if you had any doubt."
She stood back up and the two took each other in their arms, with Rika still unable to completely stop laughing.
"Heehee, I'm just so damn happy! Finally, we've done it! We rule the roost, we climbed to the top of the ladder, we call the shots!"
"And we did it together."
"And we get to stay together!"
Renamon pulled back long enough to give Rika a kiss before gesturing around them.
"Then let it all out. Announce our victory to everyone. I want to hear you say it."
Rika stepped away from Renamon, took a deep breath, and shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Digimon everywhere, hear me! I am the mighty Rika, Queen of the South! And one day, I will be Queen of the Digital World!"
The tournament ended just as well as Rika hoped. Not only did the tamer trio win, they were ecstatic with the offer Rika presented them with in private. The chance to show off their power and earn yet more glory by leading a charge into her former territory, who wouldn't jump at the chance? Yeah, she understood them.
That's right, she had a bigger plan in mind than simply letting them serve in her army. When she and Renamon ascended to the Southern Throne, there was understandably a lot of opposition to them from Digimon who didn't want to accept their new rulers. Not just from Zhuqiaomon's former subjects, but up to and including the other Sovereigns. But the new queens kept true to their word about not giving up any of their victory. Not willingly. After giving a single warning to the Digimon in her territory and who had pledged their service to Zhuqiaomon to either serve them and be rewarded, or leave and never trouble them, it didn't take long for things to degenerate into hostility between the queens and the Sovereigns.
Still, striking down a god and taking his place did even greater wonders for self-esteem than Rika thought. Not just her own, but that of others, especially the ones who once served that god. Some bowed to her. Others ran from her. Still others rebelled against her. All of them filled her with even more confidence: They sat up and took notice of her and Renamon's power, however they did it.
For all their variety, Digimon had an inherent respect for power and, by extension, the powerful, so a good portion of Zhuqiaomon's subjects continued to serve their new rulers, and some even came to their territory willingly to serve them. Unconventional though they were, Rika and Renamon's reputation was an inspiration to many: A tamer and Digimon who started from the bottom and climbed to the top, and then went even higher. Still, there was plenty of fear everywhere else in the Digital World that they wouldn't stop there and would expand their influence. The queens had expected this and planned accordingly, but when the Sovereigns united against them and attacked, perhaps in hopes of not only dethroning them but somehow restoring the former ruler, there was only so much they could do, and it had taken them until almost half their former territory was lost before the combination of their military prowess and personal power had halted the advance and kept things in an uneasy stalemate.
Much of their time as queens had been spent holding onto their remaining territory, and now they were ready to put a big plan into motion. Now that Ai, Mako and Impmon had demonstrated their strength, it was time to turn this stalemate into a counteroffensive and do something about the trespassers occupying their land.
But that wasn't the only thing Rika had decided it was time for. Oh no, there was another, much bigger change coming if she had her way.
As she and Renamon walked back to their bedroom that evening, with Rika's arms crossed behind her head in satisfaction, Renamon looked at her with a smirk. "I know that smile...it means you're either planning something or you're about to put that plan into action," she remarked.
"Hmhm, little of both, if I can get away with it," the human said as she looked over her shoulder at the Gazimon servants following them. "Leave us." When they were gone, she undid her cape and tossed it off along with her gloves. "I have been thinking. We've been married for three years today, and during those three years, we've changed the course of history, haven't we?"
Renamon nodded. "Replacing a digital god, marrying despite being different species, ruling a digital kingdom despite one of us not even being a Digimon...ours is going to be its own chapter in every book about the Digital World's history," she agreed.
"And I don't want that to just be one chapter, nope," Rika continued as she unbuttoned her vest, "I'm ready for us to star in the next one, too. But first, we have to start it, and I know just the way."
Another nod. "I know. I'm looking forward to letting Beelzemon and the kids loose too," the fox said with a wider smirk.
"Not just that. I mean, what we've done has already changed things, but I want to go further and shake both humans and Digimon to their foundation," Rika mused, the vest joining the cape and gloves.
"...You want to invade Earth as well?" Renamon guessed. "But you've never-"
"No, no, my opinion of the Earth has never changed. It can still go to Hell for all I care," Rika waved the guess off. "That, and I have enough to handle in the Digital World, I don't need Earth's problems too."
"...Then please, go on," Renamon offered.
"I don't want our story to end with us. I want it to go on and on," she kept musing, walking over to sit on the bed and see if Renamon could guess what she meant. When the fox gave a little shrug, Rika continued, "Trying to live forever pretty much never goes well, so I'm going to accept the reality that neither of us is going to be around forever...and I want to pursue a different kind of immortality. See, while no one's been able to unseat us, I have a feeling they have this thought that, 'If we just wait it out, at least they'll die someday and then things will go back to normal.'"
Renamon still didn't seem to get it, answering with, "This has to be something amazing if even I can't read you this time."
"Haha, oh it is, it's maybe the most amazing idea I've ever had." She kicked her shoes off as she winked at Renamon. "I'm saying I want a worthy successor to carry on our legacy."
"...You mean..."
"I do." She leaned forward to rest her chin on her hands. "I want an heir."
That had the impact Rika hoped for, as Renamon just stared at her in confusion. Good; if this was what her own wife thought, Rika couldn't wait to see what kind of impact this had on everyone else.
When Renamon didn't say anything, Rika laughed softly, and then said, "Hello? I'm saying I want us to have a baby."
Renamon shook her had slightly, walking over to Rika. "I'm sorry...I just never exactly thought you would. Having a baby never occurred to me, anyway...and not just because we're both female," she explained as she sat next to her.
"Well...surprise. I do," Rika hummed, "and I have a plan...well, it's actually both a plan and an experiment," she leaned her head on Renamon's shoulder, looking up at her with a sweet smile, "because I want a child that's from both of us."
"You...whaaat?" Renamon squawked, wide-eyed.
"You heard me. I want you," she pointed at Renamon, "and me," then at herself, " to do like men and women do when they make a baby, only we'll actually make one too."
The Digimon blinked, her brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of what Rika just told her, and then waved at her to continue. "Okay, you have a plan, so...go ahead, tell me everything."
She reached up to her chest and rested her hand on her D-Power. "Something Azulongmon said to us three years ago has been going through my head ever since: The possibility that Zhuqiaomon could come back someday, even if it takes our deaths for that to happen. I didn't just want to take over to play queen, I wanted to send a message and change things forever, and if he came back, it would all be undone. A few months ago, I finally had an idea...whether we absorbed his data or not, it still exists somehow. So if we can't destroy it completely," she nuzzled Renamon's shoulder and hugged her arm, "why not do something even better, and destroy him by turning him into something and someone else?"
Renamon looked...a little disgusted with the suggestion. "You want to bring Zhuqiaomon back as our child?"
"No!" Rika snapped. "No. I would never let him live, ever. But with this idea, he won't be himself anymore. He'll be..." She hummed before shaking her head. "I'm actually not completely sure what he'll be, any more than I'd be sure what any child would be like. But think of it like this...there's more than one way to get rid of something. Sometimes you try to destroy it. Other times you try to turn it into something else, maybe by breaking it down first. It's like that."
"And, do tell, how will this...work?" Renamon asked.
"Someone's interested," Rika teased as she held her D-Power forward. "Zhuqiaomon's Digi Cores are still under our control, and I'm going to use one of them to give my D-Power a neat new trick: Breaking down data you've uploaded into something else, like the energy needed to fuel this kind of change. Then, when we biomerge and separate, I'll be carrying a child formed of both of us." Again, Renamon was silent, looking at Rika with thinly veiled disbelief. "Well, okay, it's kind of like making a child with three people contributing genes instead of two. It's an experiment, yeah, but my research says it'll work. Once we can do it, we'll take Zhuqiaomon's data and it'll join yours and mine in the form of a child, and if it works, we can do it again, even, with other powerful Digimon we destroy. Something like a Rookie wouldn't be enough, in fact it'd be like trying to catch a mosquito in a net, but a Mega like Zhuqiaomon...well, it'll cause us to lose some power now, yes, but think of it as a big investment with an even bigger return! A return that could be anything we want if we just work hard enough at it!"
Renamon let out a sigh, shaking her head but smiling in mild exasperation. "I wonder if this is what it must have felt like to hear someone lay out her plan about how she's going to conquer the world and you can't believe you're even listening," she replied.
"Don't tell me it's not fitting. Zhuqiaomon was a phoenix, and what do phoenixes do? They come back from death. If he's going to come back, he's going to come back as someone else, as someone better," she chuckled, tossing her D-Power up a couple of times, "and another thing, our biomerged form is named after the kitsune Kuzunoha, and her legend is about a fox who marries a human and bears him a son of both worlds...only this time it'll be the human who does it, and I already have a feeling it'll be a girl. What better way would there be for us to have another queen who can rule when we're gone?"
The fox looked back and forth between Rika and her D-Power, settling on staring at Rika with a raised eyebrow. "Sounds like you've been planning this for a long time. You're even already hoping for a girl," she noted.
She nodded, chuckling again. "Firstborn girls kinda run in my family. Me, my mom and my grandma were all firstborn, so call it a hunch the trend'll continue. I've even been toying with names." Her sweet smile returned as she leaned up to kiss Renamon's nose. "I'm not hearing a 'no,' or even a 'let me think about it,' by the way..."
Renamon drummed her fingers on her knees before answering, "Two things. One...I do need to think about it, and now's really not a good time. We have a big offensive coming up, now that we have Beelzemon and the kids to spearhead it, and if we can take and hold onto the territory we're aiming for...that'll make me a lot more agreeable."
"Works for me. And the other?"
She put an arm around Rika's shoulders and ran the backs of her fingers against her chin as she said, "Promise me you won't name her something like Renee or Monica."
"...Aww, but-"
"No."
"Those are good names."
"No pun names."
Rika pouted, but conceded the point. "Fiiine, then you can help me come up with new ones...if you promise you'll really think about this."
"Good deal, and that means," Renamon wrapped her other arm around Rika and pulled the human atop her as she rolled onto her back, "I want to enjoy as much time as I can of it being 'us' before it gets to 'us plus one'...and by the way, I plan on being even more protective of you than I am now."
Rika grinned before they kissed, already congratulating herself on her job well done. Their futures were looking ever brighter, indeed.
She would keep fighting and keep winning, for herself, for her kids, and for Renamon, her partner, her lover, her fellow Queen of the Digital World.
A/N Continued
Digimon (c) Namco-Bandai.
My copyright policy: "Sharing is caring." Do what you like with this story, not like I can do anything to stop you, in fact I'd be flattered you'd want to share it or save it so you can read it whenever you want. All I ask is that you link back to the original source. A version that can be copied is on my DA page (I'm Evertide there too).