Review responses
Guest) How would that work exactly? Distributed by what method? With what camera? And which variety of Digimon would have interest in the day-to-day lives of the Tamers/ an Angewomon/LadyDevimon /the Legendary Warrior of Light? Yes, I realize that the implication is that the Tamers have saved nearly every Digital World in existence countless times over, but how would the average Digimon know about that?
The Keeper of Worlds) What else did you expect? Oh... Oh, I'm going to have them appear. But don't take it personally if I twist it around into something you never quite wanted or asked for.
Deadman Infinite) Whaaa? OH MY GOD, HE'S GONNA EAT ME!
In the bedroom, Raya slowly stirred, blinking when Saial was nowhere in sight, realizing what had happened.
After getting dressed and walking downstairs, she found Saial, Koji, the Tamers and their partners engrossed in a conversation that seemed to have been carrying on for quite some time. "How long was I asleep this time?" Raya sardonically asked the group, who stared quizzically at her.
"About a day. It's noon right now, but I've got a better question for you; why did you two even choose to live in the desert?" Terriermon grumbled. "This place is unbelievably dull..."
"It was where we found ourselves when we decided to cohabitate," Saial sheepishly answered. "Can you fault us for it?"
"Yes," Terriermon flatly responded.
"Well, also for the sake of privacy," Raya half-heartedly attempted, and received skeptical looks from Rika, Terriermon and Koji.
"Good job on that score, by the way..." They muttered simultaneously.
"Could you please stop staring?" Angewomon nervously asked Takato and Rika, who were eyeing her chest with mild interest and envy respectively, and Henry, who was instead ogling Raya. They hadn't meant to, but meeting the moderately well-developed Angewomon and more well-developed LadyDevimon just reminded her of everything she was missing out on in becoming immortal.
"It's quite alright," LadyDevimon assured them, smiling softly, while Terriermon rhetorically asked if she could blame them, joking that Rika was flat as a brick, earning him a furious glare from Rika.
"Almost a century, and you're actually hung up on that?!" The red-head seethed at the rabbit, who rushed to his Tamer, hiding behind his leg.
"Rika, calm down," Henry told the annoyed red-head.
"I am calm, Henry," Rika replied flatly, which everyone present knew to signify a simmering inferno of anger boiling inside her. "I'm standing calmly, I'm breathing calmly..." She continued unemotionally, eyeing the rabbit with evident displeasure. "And soon, I'm calmly going to rip Terriermon's freaking head off."
...
...
...
About an hour later, Terriermon lied on his bed of choice, nursing his injuries from the beating Rika inflicted on him almost half an hour ago, bored out of his digital skull, with nothing in the way of entertainment but the highly-familiar, faintly nostalgic, sight of Takato and Henry engaged in a passionate make-out session. Against the left wall of the bedroom, Renamon stood leaned against a wall, her eyes closed, her stance completely calm.
As the sight held no real interest or value for the rabbit, he resumed staring at the dark-purple ceiling and walls surrounding his small form. Briefly, the kitsune wondered whether Henry had really thought it through when he told them that he just wanted to live the quiet life with the five, rather than wander the Digital Worlds, drifting between one decisive battle and the next.
She couldn't pretend that living like that wasn't safer, and perhaps even enjoyable in its own way as well, but after over a century, did he really expect that they could simply readjust to his ideal life so readily? Though she knew that they would likely give it to him, she just couldn't but wonder if not death was the preferable ending to it all, given the choices between wandering and fighting, a group suicide, or a quiet, peaceful existence that would almost inevitably degenerate into mind-numbing boredom...
The relative quietude of their borrowed bedroom was disturbed further when Rika entered the bedroom, a mildly perturbed expression on her face. Not noticing, a minute passed before Takato broke away from Henry, the chinese male greeting her briefly.
"Henry, we need to talk," Rika told him, with a note of nervousness to her voice, surprising Henry, as there wasn't anything going on at the moment that could cause such a reaction. Had he done something? It couldn't be that what he had requested yesterday had caused this, could it?
"What about?" He responded, deciding that his speculations were likely pointless.
Rika hesitated slightly. It wasn't a discussion she had much looked forward, but it had to be said, she knew. "Henry, when you told us yesterday that you wanted nothing more than to live someplace quiet with us, were you serious?"
Takato and Terriermon noted Henry tense slightly, the navy-haired male hoping that the conversation wasn't headed where he suspected. "Of course I was, Rika. Why wouldn't I be?"
Rika gave him a wistful smile. "You do realize what it entails, don't you?" As she uttered the words, Henry began to glare at her. One-hundred years of following her everywhere, and she couldn't even try to pretend to give him this in return? Takato, Terriermon and Renamon sighed inwardly, all three wondering whether she really believed that they hadn't realized the consequences already, and arrived at the conclusion that it was an infinitesimally-small price to pay for something Henry wanted.
"Why do you think I never suggested it?" Henry quietly answered.
"Look, Henry, we'll definitely do this for you, it's just..." Rika paused, sighing before continuing. "But... How long do you think it would be before living here became unbearably dull?" The red-head questioned. "A year? Two years? Five? A decade? What would we be doing here to amuse ourselves?"
"You've got all of us," Henry pointed out with a smirk.
"That works," Rika grinned back.
...
...
In the other bedroom, Saial was sprawled out on the queen-sized bed, her expression pensive, one or two of her six wings occasionally twitching every few seconds.
What had begun as a relatively-straightforward wager between her and Raya had been complicated greatly by the surprise arrivals of the first Tamers and their partners, then Koji. The angel couldn't pretend that they weren't pleasant company in their own ways, but hadn't it been supposed to be just her and the demoness?
Come to think of it, hadn't the demoness already won, in a sense? Even after only five days, the angel couldn't say that it wasn't readily apparent that the demoness genuinely loved her without deluding herself.
Deciding that dwelling on the matter likely wouldn't wield answers, she wandered downstairs, into the left library, where she found the demoness. However, Raya's presence was just about the only thing that didn't surprise about the room.
What had previously been a two-three meters tall and wide book room with navy-blue walls and eight wooden bookcases of three shelves each brimming with books, was now a five meters tall and fifty-sixty meters wide library, with deep-white walls that almost seemed to extend into infinity, the bookcases numbering closer to a hundred, and tripled in height.
The bookcases themselves, which had previously been arranged horizontally in a pattern of two standing side by side and three behind each, were now sectioned of sets of six, with several more sets behind each, with two-three meters of empty space separating each bookcase.
Strangely, there was also several smooth wooden columns, scattered randomly around the floor, contrasting the much orderly layout of the bookcases.
Next to the door, Saial noted the sudden presence of a wooden staircase leading upstairs that extended behind the wall. She didn't quite know how far up it extended, but judging from the dim lighting in the passage-way, she estimated it to be quite far up.
"How is this possible?" Saial wondered, looking around with a flummoxed expression for the demoness, spotting her, with a few stacks of books around her, about five bookcases into that pseudo-maze of memories, fond as painful, things forgotten, and things yet to be.
"Hey, Saial," Raya smiled brightly at the angel who was approaching her. "Do you like what I've done with the room?"
"How is this possible?" Saial asked slowly. While it seemed fairly reasonable to assume that the demoness, who had created the entire mansion from nothing with ease could also alter the interior, the angel was at a loss as to understand how the demoness had managed to make a single room of the building larger than the actual building itself.
She had never been able to keep very good track of directions like left and right as a Gatomon, but she was relatively certain that the bedroom the Tamers, Renamon, Guilmon and Terriermon occupied was the one closest to the library. Shouldn't it logically have been displaced by the expansion of the library? A horrible thought suddenly occurred to her. Were... Were they dead? It would explain why they hadn't reacted to-
Raya wasn't altogether sure why Saial suddenly ran out of the room, with a panicked expression, but likely there was something she'd missed, and followed the angel out of the library, and upstairs.
Renamon wasn't altogether sure why Angewomon had suddenly entered their bedroom, and was looking around with a befuddled expression. "Nothing has changed..." Saial whispered, shocked beyond all belief. "How is that possible?!"
"Why would it?" Rika dryly pointed, unsure of why the angel found it strange that their bedroom looked the same today as it had yesterday, and the day before.
"How is what possible?" Raya quizzically asked, confused. Saial gave the demoness a blank look. If she was being deliberate obtuse in regards to the impossibility she'd managed with the downstairs library, there was no trace of it in LadyDevimon's tone or face. Terriermon and Guilmon decided that whatever was going on, was likely entertaining, so they turned their heads towards the arguing pair.
"Raya..." Saial slowly said, with amused mild exasperation, trying and failing to stifle a laugh. "Do you seriously mean to tell me that you see nothing unusual about a single room of the building being larger than the surrounding building?"
Guilmon, Rika, Henry, Renamon, Takato and Terriermon stared blankly at the angel, doubting strongly that they had heard her right. The saurian decided to go investigate it.
"Is that what this is about? Me making the library downstairs bigger?" Raya questioned, hanging on the last word. "I love that song by the way, y'know, big and bigger, biggest dreamer! Maybe we could visit one of those timelines sometime, and just have a good time?" She excitedly asked, oblivious to the bewildered looks she received from the group.
"Wh-what?" Saial stuttered. One moment they had been discussing interior design that doubled as a violation of the laws of physics, then the conversation had somehow turned to adress the demoness' taste in music, and subsequently some vacation plans?
"What?" Raya blankly answered.
Outside, Guilmon was looking at the outside of the house. The dinosaur scratched the back of his head. The outside of the house looked no different than it had when they first arrive. It was still the same as when they had arrived about two weeks ago, so what Angewomon had meant by the library being bigger eluded Guilmon, who decided to head back inside.
Figuring that there was no harm in seeing what Angewomon had talked about upstairs, Guilmon went into the library, and understood her point immediately. The place was enormous now, compared to before. Noticing the stair case, he decided to see just how far up it went, as it looked to be about seven floors, which was quickly proven correct, when he passed the floors, counting them as he went, reaching the end after a few minutes.
The floors were all the same, Guilmon noted; white endless voids containing books and bookcases, and little besides. Deciding to explore the third floor as a start, the dinosaur looked around bit, absently passing several bookcases, pausing when he came across a series of books on a nearby bookshelf to his left, holding Takato's name in the familiar DigiCode alphabet that had taken him a few months to learn, almost seventy-five years ago, though some had 'Matsuda' as his last name, with occasional ones using 'Wong', 'Nonaka', 'Makino', 'Akiyama', 'Orimoto', 'Damon', 'Yagami' and 'Motomiya' instead of either. Strangely, they also held some numbers that Guilmon understood to be timeline designations from the backings claiming such.
At least, he assumed that it said 'Wong', 'Nonaka', 'Damon' and 'Makino'. He had never been able to remember the difference between the 'N' and 'W' symbols...
Reaching it for a book had been simple enough for the saurian. However, he noted with mild annoyance that claws weren't exactly the best means available for turning book-pages.
Guilmon tensed at the mention of 'Megidramon' on a single page. Though it was over seventy years ago, the memories of that dark day were still clear in his memory. Suddenly, he heard footsteps from the staircase. As the sound held none of the subtle distinctions between the gaits of the others he'd become attuned to, yet sounded to be around the same weight as them, he decided it to be Koji.
"Hey, Koji." Guilmon greeted the navy-haired boy, who paused slightly. The dinosaur's back was turned, so how had he known that it was him? Had Guilmon smelled him? Koji decided that the dinosaur likely had done so.
"Hey, Guilmon," Koji answered, mildly weary, not interested in conversation at the moment, more interested in the sudden change of layout. The walls were a faint white, and there were scattered bookcases around, arranged in a perfect symmetrical pattern of numerous sets of six.
With nothing else of interest on this floor, Koji continued up the staircase to the fifth floor, which looked identical to the first, second, third and fourth. Walking into the fifth floor, he walked over to the third bookshelf of the first set from the doorway, taking a purple-backed book detailing him, though under the name 'Kouji Minamoto' with the additional designations of 'Universe eighty-nine, Timeline zero-to-fifty'.
Opening the book revealed the table of contents, and several surprising facts. Some of the timelines had a few pages dedicated to each, others only a single page, while timelines twenty-five and twenty-seven had twenty pages each devoted to them. Koji decided that the contents of the books didn't hold much interest for him at present, and returned to the third floor, as he had some questions for Guilmon regarding his human companions.
Guilmon paused when he heard Koji return from upstairs, and the dinosaur turned to face the immortal, briefly noting the slightly tense look in his eyes. "Guilmon, can I talk to you about something?"
"Sure," Guilmon shrugged, knowing all too well what he wanted to ask; indeed, it had long since become routine. Hopefully, this Koji would provide a variation on the questions he'd heard almost ad nauseum.
"It's about Takato, Rika and Henry," Koji began, giving Guilmon ample comfirmation, if any he'd needed, that this would be another of the same, tedious conversations.
"What?" The saurian asked, with a note of what Koji almost thought was boredom.
He ignored it, continuing his inquiries. "Well, over the few days I've been here, there's something that's been confusing me. What exactly do those three have together? I know that Henry's dating Takato, but it just seems like there's something between Takato and Rika."
Guilmon eyed him quizzically, wondering why Koji was asking him if it concerned those three, which Koji misinterpreted as not understanding what he was referring to, before shrugging that he had his reasons.
"Look, she's certainly not rude, but she's... I guess, distant and unemotional to a degree to everyone except him, Henry and her partner." Koji continued. Guilmon nodded, supposing that it might be a reasonable conclusion to arrive at, even if the reality was different. But if Koji had noticed the almost literally age-old attraction between his Tamer and Rika, how had the other mutual, currently inactive attractions among the six of them gone unnoticed to him?
"That's just how Rika is," Guilmon answered simply. He couldn't disagree with his assessment of her, though. In the human world they'd originally left many years prior, she had become a much warmer and kinder individual over the months and years. However, leaving for the Digital World, and beyond, hadn't helped much in that regard, with her sweet side becoming almost exclusively reserved for the five of them. "And besides, it's kinda obvious why there's an attraction between Takato and Rika."
The last part of Guilmon's sentence got Koji's absolute attention, and mild annoyance at the likely unintentional jab at his intelligence. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, we've been traveling together, just the six of us, for almost a hundred years, and, well..." Guilmon pointed out. Koji had little clue what Guilmon was trying to tell him, nor was he certain how to respond to the implications.
"Guilmon, what exactly are you saying?" Koji questioned.
"I'm sorry if I wasn't being obvious," Guilmon replied, more than a bit tired of having to explain this nearly every single time. "About twenty, forty and seventy years back, Takato and Rika were together for a few months, and two years on one occasion."
"'Twenty, forty and seventy years'?" Koji exclaimed. How old were these guys? He'd assumed them to be in their late teens like himself, but this was incredible! Seventy years!? How could they possibly have stayed together that long? "It never lasts between them?"
Guilmon shook his head slowly. "Never, no matter which two or three of us it is."
Koji froze. Had... Had Guilmon just said what he thought that the dinosaur had? He couldn't have, could he? "Three?" Koji exclaimed, bewildered at how it was even possible for three people to be together like that? The library being bigger inside than out had been surprising, but this, this was downright mindboggling!
"Yeah, what's wrong with that?" Guilmon curiously asked, wondering why he suddenly seemed and sounded confused.
"Three people?" Koji asked, skeptical at the concept. Guilmon wasn't sure why his tone suddenly sounded angry. "How would that even work?"
"It doesn't," Guilmon answered softly. "It didn't the first time for us, not the second and not the third either, any two or three..."
Koji froze at a single word of his sentence, his eyes widening. "Wha-what? What do you mean by, 'us'?" He gaped at the confused saurian. Then, a highly unusual, almost repulsive thought crossed his mind. "Guilmon..." He spoke slowly. "Are you saying... That you've dated Rika or Takato or Henry too?!"
Much to his shock, Guilmon nodded briefly. Koji really hoped that he was being sarcastic. He didn't think of Digimon as any less alive or real than humans, but there was just something about the dinosaur doing those sorts of thing with them that deeply unsettled him. "Any one or two of them, really." Guilmon answered casually. "Me and Takato and Rika, me and Renamon and Terriermon, any arrangement you can think of-"
"Just... Please stop talking..." Koji cut in, feeling faintly nauseaous as it was, trying not to think about the physical mechanics of those relationships, deciding instead to change the subject. "So you guys have lived for almost a century, huh? Sounds... Boring, to be honest..." Koji said. Loath as he was to admit it, he sometimes wanted nothing more than to return home, and be mortal. He'd been the same physical age for several years now.
"Maybe it would be boring to you, but not to me," Guilmon smiled wistfully, with a note of resigned-yet-optimistic sadness to his tone. "Believe it or not, I actually want to keep on living."
"Why?" Koji questioned. He didn't think it was healthy, but sometimes he considered ending his own life; after all, what was there for the navy-haired male in the Digital World? No family, no friends, no real loyalty to anyone in particular...
"Well, I've got them with me," Guilmon reasoned. "They're all the company I really need."
"I don't believe it," Koji exclaimed in shock. "You're really telling me that everything's perfect as long as you've got Takato, Rika, Henry, Terriermon and Renamon?"
"Well, I can't really say it's been perfect," Guilmon conceded. "There's been some hard times along the way. About three or four decades back, there was a few months where I didn't talk to Renamon, or maybe Rika, at all, but it's been pretty good, all things considered."
"Incredible..." Koji whispered, in incredulity. "I've been alive for twenty long years, drifting aimlessly, and I see no point in living anymore. You six, however, have been doing the same thing for almost a hundred, and you seriously want to keep going?"
"Yeah," Guilmon answered.
"I don't get it," Koji groused. "What is so great about living for so long?"
"Well, we have time enough to do whatever we need to," Guilmon rationalized. "And honestly, I don't think that any of us would mind spending a few hundred years together. I mean, we've done nearly a hundred already; what's a few hundred more?"
Koji stared speechless at the saurian, wondering whether he really meant that. No matter how he approached the matter, he couldn't view that sort of long-term commitment as anything but ultimately wearying. "Do you really think that, Guilmon?" Renamon's soft voice called out to them from the staircase. She smiled softly at them, with an inscrutable look in her eyes that Koji didn't quite understand what meant, while Guilmon understood it perfectly. "Because I can't lie to, any of you, Guilmon; to me, the endless years are nothing but a burden, or a curse."
Guilmon couldn't help but agree with the kitsune somewhat. Indeed, there had been times, many times, once almost a decade, where he'd felt similarly about it, but despite how wearying it would get, and had already been, he still liked to think that immortality had it's merits. "I guess they could be."
Renamon leaned back against the wall, looking directly at Guilmon, ignoring Koji. "I'm honestly more surprised that you don't consider them that." Renamon softly spoke to Guilmon, who simply looked back. It had been like this ever since they left, he mused.
One or two of them would take a philosophical standpoint in favor of embracing immortality, one or two others would the opposite standpoint and whoever was left would generally not concern themselves with the philosophical implications, deciding instead to simply live their lives as best they could. Every few years or so, someone would occasionally change their minds on the matter, with the last few years having Rika and Terriermon as the ones against it, himself and Henry for it, and Takato and Renamon more interested in simply living.
"How could you possibly want to live for as long as we have, and even longer?" Renamon questioned, eyeing him curiously. "Does death scare you that much?"
Koji mused that Guilmon being scared of dying was likely the explanation, even if only partially, for why he wanted to keep on living. "It kinda does." Guilmon admitted. "But that's not really why I wanna keep going."
Renamon's stare turned quizzical. "Then, why do you, exactly?"
Guilmon paused, trying to think of a way to phrase his reply. "I guess I just don't want to say goodbye to you guys..."
"I don't want that either," Renamon whispered, her gaze softening before turning melancholic. "What sort of sad things has immortality made of us?" Renamon whispered, almost so quietly that Guilmon doubted that he would have heard her, if not for the absolute silence in the library. Koji could have sworn that she'd said something, but he couldn't hear what. "We six don't stay together just because we want to, but also because we're too frightened to live separately..."
Guilmon looked down, deciding it likely that the kitsune was right. "Yeah... On that cheerful note, if you guys want me for anything, I'll be upstairs," Guilmon softly told them, reverting to a form familiar to both Koji and Renamon.
The new Digimon had skin a faintly lighter shade of red than Guilmon, and stood on four short stubby legs. His ears were largely the same length as before, while his tail had shortened and gained a black portion that spanned more than a fourth of its length. He looked up at the confused Koji and mildly amused Renamon with a wide smile and an innocent look in his golden eyes.
"What just happened?!" Koji exclaimed. The newly formed Gigimon eyed him mock-quizzically. "Why did he just revert to that form?"
"I'm called 'Gigimon' in this form," The miniature saurian informed him in a more high-pitched voice than Koji normally associated with him. "And it's because I'm adorable."
Koji blinked at the vague justification for the action. He couldn't pretend it wasn't true, but it still seemed weird to do it on a whim. Renamon, however, facepalmed, leaning her head back slightly, laughing jubilantly. "Really, Gigimon? How long has it been? Twenty years?"
"Pretty much," Gigimon simply answered, before merrily skipping towards the staircase, up the stairs.
"Has... Has this happened before?" Koji tentatively asked.
"Yes," Renamon answered, smiling. "Every few month about thirty years back, Guilmon would spend as much time as he could in that form, until some battle came along."
Alright, I think I've run the gamut of immortality Tropes (Who Wants To Live Forever / Living Forever Is Awesome / Eternal Love) with this chapter.
Next chapter, we'll get some new residents, Davis/Veemon/Kari/Gatomon/TK/Patamon or Takuya/Zoe/JP/Tommy, whoever would be preferred or more popular.
As always, if you enjoyed the chapter, please leave a review.
