Review Responses
The Keeper of Worlds) As always, thank you for your stunning contributions.
Guest 01) Is that so? I knew of Magnamon, UlforceVeedramon, and Imperialdramon, but Goldramon is news to me. Still, MagnaAngemon and Cyberdramon can both reach that form, same as AeroVeedramon/Paildramon, so I don't expect it to count for anything story-wise. Well, considering what happened, he can't really be faulted for anger.
Caymon7777) Well, that's a considerably more low-brow answer than I expected. Kudos.
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Look, I don't like to nag you guys about stuff, but is it really that unreasonable for the quite-large number of people (seriously, triple-digits) visiting either this story or my profile to leave an opinion on the poll?
Really. Three days running, and only two votes, both of whom I've asked? Is that really how much interest you guys have?
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Well hell, I'm improving! Man, it feels like only yesterday I first wrote the strip poker story...
It's been a long ride... The weeks and months have just flown by, huh?
You guys already know what I'm gonna say, right?
To everyone who's bothered to read one of my stories, for whatever reason, whether you loved it, liked it, hated it, disliked it, or just didn't care for the experience, thank you. All of you. From the bottom of my heart.
"Raya, wake up," Saial sternly told the demoness, who lied in her bed with her head firmly buried in a pillow, her hair messy and frazzled, her eyes sealed shut, a contented smile on her face, and a mild trickle of drool leaking from her half-open mouth. "Please, Saial... Just five more hours..." She grumbled, along with something the angel didn't quite hear.
"No, not five minutes," Saial wearily told her, before realizing that she had said, 'hours', rather than minutes. She knew the demoness' fondness for sleep and rest well, but that amount of time was simply absurd.
"Oh, Saial... I never knew you had it in you..." Raya suddenly whispered hotly. "Yes... Yes, Saial, that's it! More, Saial, more! Yes, YES! YEEESS! YYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" She cried loudly, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, a cry of passion fading into a yelp as she awoke.
"On second though, please go back to sleep..." Saial sighed. Though it was already noon, it was far too early to deal with demoness' less-than-chaste proclivities.
"Saial, did I say something odd while I was asleep?" Raya casually inquired.
"More than you know, yet nothing that particularly surprised me," Saial answered with just-a-hint of amusement. "Speaking of which, did you just have a lewd dream about me?" She apprehensively asked, unsure of whether to consider the notion flattering, unsettling or some middle-ground between both.
"Yeah," Raya answered promptly, her voice devoid of any sense of embarrasment about it. Saial gave a mildly shocked, not having expected such a blunt reaction. "But can you blame me? The love of my life, an incredibly gorgeous Digimon, so close to me... You don't even know what you do to me, do you, Saial?"
"No, I-I was not aware of th-tha-" Saial stammered, flustered, her face more than slightly tinged red, freezing when the demoness began to approach her, leaving her own bed to walk towards her, and placed a kiss that was considerably more chaste than Saial had expected. "What are you doing?!" The angel sharply asked, after the demoness had broken away from her.
"I'm sorry, Saial, but, it's just..." The demoness paused, unsure of how to articulate what she was feeling. Identifying it wasn't difficult; it was lust, pure and simple. However, what unnerved her about was how the angel that was eyeing her curiously might respond to something like that, something she'd likely dismiss as lewd and decadent. "I need you..." Raya hesitantly admitted.
Saial tensed in shock and mild disgust. She couldn't say it was surprising, but was twenty days, or technically ten, really as long as the demoness could manage to keep her pruriency in check? "And what of your word that you would not force yourself on me?"
Raya simply gave a faintly amused half-smile. "Saial, we both know that I could never do that, even if I ever wished to..." Her eyes widened, when Saial suddenly pressed her lips against hers, though she decided to simply enjoy it, melting into the kiss, content and calm even as the angel's soft, slightly calloused hand caressed her exposed breast. "And here I thought that you didn't much condone unchaste behavior..." The demoness chuckled.
"Unchaste? Nonsense!" Saial dismissed. "What could possibly be even remotely unchaste about lovemaking with my beloved?"
Raya stifled a laugh at being addressed as 'beloved'. Though she was happy to hear it, it still sounded strange to be referred to as such. All in all, it really did seem as though they had, for the lack of a better term, swapped personalities, as Saial acted now much like she had used, composed in speech and slightly reserved in conduct, while her own, less-formal, speech-pattern had been used by Saial as a Gatomon. "What, indeed..." Raya gave a contented smile back, along with a furious, urgent kiss.
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Meanwhile, in the third floor of the left section of the library, somewhere in the endless expanse of books, amongst memories long-forgotten and things yet to be, TK, Rika and Koji were having a quiet moment, discussing Davis and Kari's new relationship.
"I just don't understand..." TK murmured, his voice laced with mixed hurt, annoyance and confusion. "Why did she choose Davis over me? What did they have together that I didn't have with her? Am I really such a bad person that I didn't deserve her?"
Koji tensed, grimacing, as what the blond was saying sounded almost exactly like what he himself had felt during his first year or so away from his group. Despite that, he couldn't think of anything to say to console TK about it. Perhaps, the navy-haired male mused, he hadn't gotten over Zoe as much as forgotten her...
"I'm sorry to hear that, really, I am," Rika told him with some strange mixture between sympathy and boredom in her voice. "I know what that feels like-" She told him, before TK abrubtly cut her off, glaring fiercely at her. Koji had to admit that her composure was admirable, as even though TK was glaring at her, she barely flinched or even reacted to it.
"Don't give me that crap!" TK hollered at a considerably unfazed Rika, who was rather more interested in how he had become immortal, as his group had been annoyingly secretive and vague about that detail. "You have no idea what rejection feels like! None!? You seriously expect me to believe that you've gotten any sort of meaningful rejection from any of those five?!"
"I have," Rika coolly answered, surprising both of them. Koji mused that he'd somewhat gotten the impression that their group-dynamic, unlike his and TK's, were nearly as perfect as possible, with absolutely no trace of animosity to be found. Sure, he knew that their romantic relationships never really worked, but he'd thought the endings to be too slow to cause any real discomfort, rather than bad break-ups.
"And trust me, you'll get past it. Whether in a week, a month or a year, I don't know, but you will." She assured him. Both Koji and TK stared mildly surprised at her. While neither really knew the red-head all that well, she hadn't really seemed all that compassionate to anyone outside her group.
"Are you sure about that?" TK apprehensively inquired, earning him a mildly annoyed look from the red-head.
"Yes," Rika told him simply. "Now, is that everything?" She asked sardonically to the two. Koji was about to speak up, before Rika cut him off with a faintly annoyed look. "If you're going to whine about being immortal, take it to someone. I've gotten enough of that from everyone over the years."
Koji stared blankly at her, wondering how she'd known exactly what he was about to ask, while TK was more curious what there wasn't to 'whine' about, in being immortal.
"Enlighten me," TK sharply told her. "What, pray tell, is so great about living forever? About watching Digimon everywhere die simply slowly and invariably?"
"Isn't that why you started traveling with your group?" Rika questioned. "So that you would have someone with you, who wouldn't die and leave you behind anytime soon?"
Both TK and Koji stared speechless at her, before pondering her suggestion. The blond gave a soft smile, musing that eternity might be bearable that way, while Koji realized a further level of impact to his terrible, irrevocable, decision long years ago.
"It... It can't be that easy..." TK stammered. "It can't!"
"I didn't say it was," Rika answered. "That being said, company along this endless road would help greatly." When she finished speaking, their part of the library-maze entered a state of almost-unbearably thick silence.
Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, though was more likely to be a minute, Koji spoke. "Are you sure?" He asked softly. He didn't doubt that she believed it, and he didn't question the general veracity of the sentiment, but he just needed confirmation.
"I am," Rika replied, with an air of finality, before walking away from the two, taking a left turn into a nearby passage-way about six meters away from where the three had been.
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"That was simply divine, pun completely intended," Raya complimented the angel, a almost manic chuckle in her voice, while the pair lay nude, sweat-drenched and weary on a bed in their room, her arms around the angel, with a hand softly caressing the angel's pert breast. "You haven't lost your touch at all."
"You, however, have become much less thorough," Saial shot back, with a beaming grin on her face, and a slight groan to her tone. "I am still conscious, and able to think and speak coherently, after all.
"Oh, you're right," Raya laughed. "Give me a minute, and I'll fix that."
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To the north of where TK and Koji were, stood Davis, Kari, Takato and Henry, Veemon, Gatomon, Gigimon and Terriermon, surrounded by seven woody-brown bookcases and a pristine-white floor and ceiling, each bookcases holding ten books each, the covers of those books being varyingly red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, indigo, black, white and every color in-between.
Some of the books held the names of various Digidestined that Veemon knew of, along with two almost arbitrary numbers between zero and one-thousand designating universe and timeline, such as one on the shelf close to him being titled 'Taiki Kudo, Universe 591, Timeline 611', surprising Henry slightly, as the books used to detail fifty versions of the person in question, as well as being spelled with letters entirely, and now they were reserved for a single version of them, with numbers being allotted, presumably to conserve space.
Other books simply described assorted varieties of Digimon, such as the Agumon-species, Ankylomon-species, Angewomon-species and Aegisdramon-species. Veemon wasn't altogether sure what a 'GeoGreymon' was, but the name sounded to be made-up, and an imitation of the Greymon-species.
The navy-haired male supposed that Raya's revised system held some advantage over the previous one, as one fiftieth of a book was nowhere near enough to do the stories of people justice.
"What did you want to talk about?" Henry offhandedly inquired to Kari. The brunette tensed slightly, and felt Davis' hand entwine with her own. She had appreciated Takato's advice on the matter, but this was something that required a second opinion.
"Well, spill it already," Terriermon cracked, as the brunette had hesitated a few seconds. Davis shot the mildly impatient rabbit an annoyed look for trying to rush his girlfriend. "We ain't got all day, y'know."
"... Two days ago, Takato mentioned that you, him and Rika had been together, all three of you," Kari murmured nervously, tightening her grip on Davis' hand. Davis and Henry raised an eye-brow, wondering why she was bringing it up.
"What of it?" Henry responded, mildly defensive. She sounded faintly anxious about it, which he decided to be one of the more subdued reactions to learning of it, as opposed to Masaru and Thomas, who had gone mildly ballistic a few months back.
"And, how did that work for you?" Kari continued, her voice audibly struggling to maintain its composure. Both Gigimon and Gatomon decided this to be interesting, potentially. "I mean, I know it ended, but while you were together, how did it work for you three?"
Henry, Takato, Terriermon and Gigimon shared confused looks, still unsure of why she was asking these questions. "It worked... Very well, I guess you could say, all of the times we tried."
"Then..." Kari paused slightly. "Do you guys think that maybe, me, Davis and TK could do that too?" She apprehensively asked, earning her an incredulous look from Davis, Veemon and Gatomon, while Terriermon shook his head in exasperation. Takato and Henry shared a brief look, while Gigimon simply looked around at everyone with a wide smile, and a glint in his eyes. "I just want them to be happy, and if that sort of relationship could make that happen, then..."
After she'd finished, Davis nervously looked around at the others, hoping that someone would say something, offer some counter-argument, no matter how weak, anything to break the silence.
"But would you be happy like that?" Gigimon softly interjected, remembering his own failed relationship with Renamon and Terriermon decades ago, and distinctly not interested in having Kari or anyone experience that as well.
"That's not the point!" Kari snapped at the small dinosaur, whose eyes widened at her exclamation, while everyone gave her a shocked look.
"It is, Kari," Gigimon and Takato answered softly.
"Honestly, Kari, I don't think that you three could do that," Henry told her quietly. "We've tried so many times, in so many variations, over the years... You're welcome to try, and if it works out, great, but I honestly doubt it will."
"Oh," Kari murmured. Soon, their remote corner of the labyrinthine library became quiet once more, the noise to be heard, some footsteps in the distance, and the sound of soft wingflaps above them. Suddenly, she felt Davis' hand tighten around hers, as he dragged her down the corridor to their left, while to her surprise, Veemon and Gatomon stayed behind with the other four.
After what felt like twenty or thirty minutes of walking, taking countless twists and turns while progressing what she assumed to be west-ward and still no visible edge in sight, Kari was starting to wonder just how big the demoness had made the place, and how they would find the exit again, as Davis seemed just to drag her in the general direction of 'away'.
Davis decided their current surroundings, a medium-large room measuring at about six meters in diameter, to be a good place to talk, and turned around, glaring at her. "Kari, when you said that that you wanted to be with both me and TK, were you serious?" He sternly asked.
"Yeah," Kari bashfully admitted. "I'm sorry, Davis, but I just wanted him to be happy too..."
"I know, Kari," Davis grumbled, shaking his head. "But, Kari, just how am I supposed to take something like that?" He questioned, his tone containing a note of hurt. "Should I assume that neither me or TK are good enough for you?"
Kari's expression immediately turned crestfallen, and she stammered frantically for a few seconds. "I'm so sorry, Davis, I didn't mean that at all, I-"
"I know," Davis interjected softly, his voice holding no real anger. "I'm just saying, it wasn't your brightest move yet."
1/4 of the story already? Jeez, it went by real quick...