Chapter 37: Digital World: Dark Evolution VIII

"And the third one?"

Davis took a reminding look at it and sighed. "That's the Digimental of Miracles," Pressing a few buttons, he called the object in question up full screen. As always, it was a faded yellow instead of the glowing gold it had been when Davis had first been entrusted with it. "I can't use it, though."

Tommy frowned as he took a closer look, liberating the D-terminal from Davis' hands. "Why not? I'd guess it's powerful with a name like that."

"It's super cool!" Exclaimed Veemon promptly and Davis grinned in response, caught in his partner's enthusiasm. "I turn into Magnamon and I'm totally awesome. I never lose!"

"I have never seen a Maganamon before. What do they look like?"

As Veemon gave their companion a mildly accurate description of his mega-evolution, complete with animated gestures and sound effects, Davis fought a shudder.

The sun was shining, and it was warm. The sky was cloudless and the waves brought a pleasant swinging to their float.

It was already afternoon and Davis could still see File Island against the horizon. They had met Tommy yesterday evening and had decided to build a raft and set out to sea, as Davis knew for a fact that on that island was nothing that could help them any further. So they had started to build their ship the next morning; Veemon had cut down trees, as Davis, with his arm still broken had set about collecting edible supplies, while Tommy had gone to the next river and frozen as much drinkable water as they could possible bring along.

Now Tommy was keeping it from melting by sitting next to it, but the closeness of a giant ice-cubes was by far not enough to make Davis freeze.

Were it a normal day, in a normal situation Davis would probably like coolness it provided on a possibly hot day. The thing was only; it wasn't only their water supply that was frozen to hard ice. For stability's sake Tommy had frozen the trunks making up their raft as well.

So Davis thought it was hardly his fault that he was a bit cold after half a day of sitting on ice.

"-it, Davis?"

"Huh?" He returned, intelligently.

Tommy frowned at him, then shrugged. "I was asking why you can't use it, the digimental. There has got to be a reason."

Davis blinked, trying to clear his head. He glanced at the D-terminal in the younger boy's hands and the expectant looks on Veemon and Tommy's faces.

"Oh, yeah, that." He scratched his head, awkwardly switching hands in mid motion as one arm was still tied up. "Izzy explained that. I didn't really get it, but he said something about it needing to be 'charged' or something. I'm not sure. I mean it's not a battery."

The other snorted. "That'd be too easy." But quickly he frowned again, and Davis sighed. He was learning really fast that Tommy's default mode seems to be set either on Unnecessarily Serious or Teen on Vacation, switching between the two at the drop of a hat. "Maybe he didn't mean it literally. Since this is the Digiworld and all."

"Well, sure," agreed Davis, shrugging. "But what is that supposed to be? I mean do I have to make miracles to get it to work or something?"

"I hope not," said Tommy, handing him back his D-terminal. Davis took it and stuffed it back into his pocket. Then his fingers promptly continued to fiddle with his digivice. "If I had to guess, though, then...Well, if its powers are really as amazing as they sound, then I'd guess something must be offered for it to work. Or at least, that is what it is like in our digital world. Evolution is by far not as defined as it is here. There are many ways to get stronger. It is...more chaotic and willful." He trailed off, eyes drifting to afar, before Tommy determinedly shook his head and continued, explaining. "Like, digimon are able to combine to get stronger. Like a fusion. Two digimon turn into one of a higher evolution but, well, are one digimon then."

Davis blinked at him, his thoughts hung up on the notion of a different digital world, which, of course, he should have already known. But it had never really sunk in. What was this other world like? Flashing back to that time all those years ago when he had stubbornly followed Kari and T.K. into a different world, he felt the same flutter of excitement. He wondered if it was possible to go and see it in the future. New, unexplored places...

Then the next part of what Tommy had said sunk in. "Jogress Evolution? You have Jogress Evolution? That's amazing! Why didn't you say something? Wait. Does that mean if you have that, then we have yours? Spirit Evolution was it called? I can turn into a digimon? That's so cool-Woah!" He had forgotten for a moment here he was and having jumped up, the float swayed dangerously, making Davis lose his balance and almost fell head first into the sea.

"Davis!" Veemon, with his small body, overeager to help, forgot that he was too weak in his current form and as Davis overbalanced, trying not to fall in, his partner did. With a splash.

A hand pushed him in the back, and Davis joined Veeemon in the salty water.

Waving and kicking around, his head broke through the waves, spluttering. The water burned in his eyes and he cursed something and prepared to curse the little kid, but the words somehow transformed on their way from brain to mouth. "You look ridiculous!"

Veemon wiped some water from his face, completely missing the seaweed pierced by the small horn on his nose and sticking to his face like a mutated mustache, took one look at Davis' expression and became somewhat stuck between offended and indignant. Davis tried going for a look of innocence -

Somewhere behind him, someone snorted loudly.

-and failed miserably. He burst out laughing.

"Tai…I'm hungry."

"I know. We are looking, aren't we, Agumon?"

"I thought we were hiding?"

"That too."

"…"

"…"

"I'm hungry."

Taichi sighed. "I know." He looked around, hoping to have missed something eatable the last ten times he did it. Unsurprisingly, nothing caught his eye.

The spare firs were only hanging full of needles and while they had crossed paths with a few mushrooms, Tai was reluctant to try any as along as he didn't recognize them, still remembering the incident with the ones that made one forget everything. Who knew what other kind of special effects digital mushrooms carried along with them?

That said, Tai was hungry too and if Argumon didn't get something too he was going to be unable to fight when –not if- they were attacked the next time.

The two of them had been forced to leave the Koromon Village's cave yesterday evening when it became clear that the darkevolving digimon all had him and Agumon as their target.

Tai hoped that with them leaving no other faulty evolutions were going to happen –and if, that they were going to hunt the two of them-, but he couldn't be sure as they had put as much distance between the village and them before the sun had sunk.

Now they were hiding in the mountains, trekking south west towards the closest TV, though Tai didn't really put much hope into it working. It couldn't hurt to try beyond giving their location away, which was happening anyway for some reason.

It made Tai remember Etemon's Dark Network all those years ago, and while it was definitely possible that the stupid Fortress had a few Etemon working for it, he hadn't seen any of the tell-tale dark lines.

Maybe they had other ways of tracking them. Like by smell or something. Whatever it was, Tai hadn't yet identified it. Though currently -and it was looking more and more likely- he suspected that the activity of his digivice was somehow traced.

Agumon hadn't evolved or devolved in hours, ever since he beat a few bothersome ultimate level digimon.

Agumon was now in his default mode, Tai's digivice was as inactive as could be and they hadn't been found or attacked for half a day already.

"I'm hungry, Tai," complained Agumon pitifully. His steps were sluggish and he held his stomach, expression set in one of great suffering. Tai felt for him, but he knew Agumon well enough to know it wasn't as bad as he made it out. Yet.

"You are welcome to try and eat this wonderful greenery." Tai waved a hand at the plant covered field they were currently moving through. "Otherwise we might be lucky and find some fish in the river on the foot of this mountain."

The former goggle head might as well have told his partner Christmas had come early, so much his face lit up. "Let's go, Tai!" And he ran, suddenly very quick on his feet.

Tai laughed, but didn't follow, trusting Agumon not to go too far ahead, as he rotated his arms, doing some of the rehabilitation exercise he had been told to do.

His back still ached, but it was getting better.

Unseen from the brunet, there was a silhouette against the blue sky above him, coming closer.

"I'm sorry."

Davis grunted because while Tommy might look it with his head ducked guiltily, it didn't actually help Davis. An apology -or a dozen as of now- could not actually undo him getting pushed into the water. Davis sneezed once again and rubbed his arms, shaking from the cold.

The sun was getting closer to the horizon and already it was much too chilly. He had wrung out his clothes, but they were still damp, sucking body heat from him and that coupled the literally frozen float...well, Davis was going to be freezing cold soon enough. "Why aren't you cold," he accused sulkily.

Tommy dropped the sober expression in favor of a deadpan stare. Which even Veemon, who was already long dry, the lucky guy, copied and turned on him.

Defensively, Davis leaned back. "What?"

If Tommy's expression could have somehow become more expressive, it did just that. "I have the Spirits of Ice. You are sitting on frozen wood with frozen ice cubes next to you, you know."

Davis huffed. Honestly. "So? I mean having those Spirits or hosting them or whatever doesn't make you impervious to cold." Davis wasn't all that clear on the details about Tommy and Takuya's other kind of Chosen, that being all far to theoretical and complex for him, but he was pretty sure he would have hear about something like that.

Then he suddenly remembered the most glaring moment of recent memory, making his stomach drop.

It had been Takuya talking to them, uncharacteristically snappish and a few harsh, hurtful words. And Davis realized that he did not know if Takuya had only been referring to himself with those dodging answers. And Davis gulped, an uncomfortable heavy feeling building up inside him as he finally noticed that he didn't see a -hadn't at all- a Digivice on Tommy. "Or does it?" His voice was unsure, afraid of an answer he did not really want.

Tommy either didn't notice or didn't acknowledge it. He poked a finger to the ice they were sitting on, absently. "I haven't felt cold ever since my first trip to the digital world. Around four years ago or so. It is getting kind of difficult to remember what being cold feels like. I mean, I know when it is cold, but I don't actually feel it." There was apathy mixed with mild interest in his eyes, as if he was speaking about something else entirely. Something removed, and not the lack of what was supposed to be a part of a nature. The feeling in Davis' stomach was staring to make him feel sick.

Tommy shrugged. "I thought it was normal except none of you have effects like that no matter what element your partners belong to. But then again it probably also has to do with Spirits being elemental and a more...well...basic and of course with us doing the evolution and not a separate being in our stead. Don't really know, though. And I don't really care either."

Davis fished for words and found none. Looking for help, his gaze found Veemon. Veemon was looking back at Davis with wide and curious -innocent- eyes. He did not see anything wrong with what Tommy had just told them.

Davis wrenched his eyes shut, pushed all the air inside him out, clenched his hand harder around his digivice, before forcefully relaxing his death grip, sucking in a sharp breath and fresh, salty air and shoving his current feelings and thoughts all into a far corner of his mind.

Understanding really started to set in. And here he had been wondering why the girls, Yolei in particular, and girlish T.K. And some others and even Tai had been so put off by what Harry had explained that day. That day, Davis had thought he had understood what Harry had told them, but he hadn't; hearing something about someone was different than seeing it in a person. Davis had not truly understood.

The ice around him suddenly seemed a lot colder.

"How do you do it," he asked, and only once the words were already out, he wondered what it was that he was asking about.

Tommy blinked at him. Not entirely innocently, but still somehow pure in a way that went over Davis' head. It made him incredibly glad he was not in Tommy's place and then guilty for it.

Hadn't someone said something about split personalities? Tommy's mood swings made a lot of sense right now. Even if Davis wouldn't describe them as different personalities.

Becoming a digimon. At first Davis had thought that was absolutely amazing. He still thought so. That was until he thought about what the evolution did to the human. Awesome fighting powers, yes, action, superhero like. But it wasn't like that at a second look.

Davis was not Veemon. He was not a digimon.

There was a reason Davis was not Veemon, he thought.

For all that he loved Veemon, he did not want to be his partner.

Kick-starting his imagination, Davis placed himself in a situation where he had a choice between death or more terrible things, and becoming Veemon. With no one offering him an alternative.

Which was Tommy.

Davis imagined that the choice would not have been much of a choice at all. And he would not have ever thought about it as a bad thing. Because he would know nothing else.

Davis didn't know what it was like to become a digimon and he honestly, truthfully honestly, did not want to. The thought of it happening to him, of it happening to his friends scared him in a way that BelialVamdemon, even at its strongest, did not manage.

Davis was chosen by courage, but that did not mean he could not be afraid.

There was a reason, Davis figured, that he had Veemon, that he was not Veemon, that he was not a digimon, did not turn into a digimon. Davis was human. Not a digimon.

Suddenly, he knew exactly what he had wanted to know with his question and he clarified. "How do you turn into a digimon?"

Tommy gave him an odd look, leaning back on his arms behind him. "Evolution, of course. Are you feeling alright?"

Davis waved an impatient hand. The one attached to his arm in a sling. His other had a death grip on his digivice. "Not that. Like, you turn into a digimon, behavior and all. And I mean, your body turns totally different. How do you manage that? I don't think I could fight by when my body is completely different and a head smaller." And that was what bothered him so. That was what scared him. What it meant for the mind doing it. This was a mental thing. No enemy to beat up.

Maybe it was something Davis had not wanted to think about before.

But right now, with his arm out of use and in a sling, it jumped all but in the face. And now that Davis was aware of it, he would not run.

Davis could not imagine flipping an extra limp on and off and switching between bodies like it didn't matter and changing what he was like in the same breath.

He did not want to.

Tommy stilled. While Veemon just looked at Davis with ogle eyes, probably wondering why Davis asked so frankly obvious questions -to a digimon- , Tommy did understand it. Something he shouldn't. But did, because he was a digimon, too. More than just from evolution.

The younger boy turned his gaze directly at him, searching him, just for a moment with piercing eyes, before he sighed and turned his attention somewhere to the left of Davis' head. "It is not something that can be just explained. Evolution is evolution. Changing from one thing into another. ….You have studied biological evolution in school, haven't you?" He waited only shortly for Davis to nod before continuing with what Davis felt were carefully chosen words. "It is like that. Humans descend from monkeys. But you don't think anything strange about not being a monkey, do you?"

"Well, no. But that took eons. I don't turn into a monkey regularly."

There was a quick spark of humor flashing over Tommy's expression, but it disappeared too quickly for Davis to even work up a scowl. "But it still is like that. When I'm Chakkumon, I am Chakkumon. When I'm Blizzarmon, I am Blizzarmon. When I'm Tommy, I am Tommy."

Davis was all at once acutely aware of the ice he was sitting on; it crept up his arms, seeped through his skin and settled in his bones. "So..." he struggled to bring out the words to say exactly what he felt. They were at the tip of his horror-tied tongue. "So...you...just...change who you are? Turn into someone different? On the inside? Just like that?" And he accepted it? Freely? Voluntarily? Davis reeled with disgust, horror, anger and fear at the mere thought of that kind of mental invasion.

Getting into his head, changing who he was, was the stuff of Davis' nightmares. Ken, who couldn't hurt a fly, turned into the Digimon Kaiser just like that. Into opposites because of something like that.

Somewhere along the line as Davis had been lost in his emotional turmoil, Veemon had found himself a place to sit on Davis' lap from where he was looking worriedly at Davis. Right now, the goggle head couldn't draw comfort from him. Veemon was a digimon. What did Davis force him through with every time he made his partner change form.

So far he had always though it was just that: a change of form.

Tommy frowned and his voice hardly made it into Davis' head. "No." He shook his head, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "I am still me. If that could change, then...then there would be no reason to pick chosen children so carefully. In our world. If evolution could just... mold us into what we needed to be if only temporary. Then there would be no need for you to have a partner either. You and Veemon are carefully selected to fit together, aren't you? If any random digimon could be changed into a digmon that fit to you, why would you need Veemon?"

Veemon tugged at his shirt. Davis ignored him. "But that is exactly what you just said!"

Tommy rolled his eyes. It pissed Davis off that he could be so casual. As if they were talking about the weather. It did nothing to convince him. It scared him too."I did not. I told you it was difficult to explain. How about you compare it to play acting? And wearing masks? You can switch between masks and roles without changing the actor. Like that. ...Vaguely."

Veemon tugged more at his shirt, more intently. This time, Davis looked down. The blue digimon looked very sad, eyes round and his floppy ears pressed against his head. "Don't you like me anymore?"

It felt much worse like a punch to the gut even if Davis didn't understand how Veemon got to that thought. "No!" In his chest, something was squeezed with iron tools. "I- I...I just!...don't understand...evolution," he finished lamely, boiling the issue down to the most basic terms. "...And I don't like it."

"Oh," said Veemon, head dropping a bit more. Then he suddenly brightened. "But that's alright! Davis doesn't evolve, so you don't need to. I'm doing the evolving. It's fun, though."

"It's...-fun?"

"Yeah," Veemon boobed his head, relieved that Davis wasn't angry with him. "It feels real fun. Like jumping on your bed." Which he wasn't supposed to. "Or that fluffy, fluffy sticky stuff to eat." Cotton candy, Davis' head translated automatically even as he was stuck in a state of stupefied confusion. How, why was he thinking about cotton candy? Davis thought his eyes were wide enough to replace them with plates.

"The thing is anyway, Davis," Tommy cut in. Davis had almost forgotten about him. "We do it voluntary. It is about something that you cannot possibly understand, but we do it voluntary. Shouldn't that be enough? Can't you trust our judgment?"

This one was like running against a wall. Couldn't he trust...?

Davis opened his mouth to say something -anything; denial, reassurance, questions- but nothing came out and he closed it again. He swallowed audibly, then tried again, but words still wouldn't come. Shivering, not only from the cold, Davis exhaled.

Tommy was right, wasn't he?

Davis didn't trust him. Except he did. Just, not like that. Leaving his back open to him in a fight was no problem, no issue. But that was one of the easiest things. Fighting. It was other things he didn't trust Tommy with, didn't trust Takuya with, didn't trust that group with.

He didn't even have to think about why.

"Why are you showing mercy in battle?" Takuya had asked that, so bluntly that he seemed to think them stupid. The very same Takuya who had gained their cooperation without ever mentioning the risk, the price, involved on his side.

Davis did not trust them with the safety of their opponents, nor with their own. They had different priorities, different values, worked differently. They were just plain different and while Davis had no problem with that, he couldn't trust.

This digital world was his, theirs. Theirs to protect.

Veemon was something else entirely, though. "Sorry, Veemon." Davis patted his partner's head a bit. "I got confused for a moment."

"Okay!" Veemon chirped.

Very pointedly, Davis did not apologize to Tommy and he glanced at him from the corner of his eyes.

And that, right there, was why he couldn't believe in Tommy. Instead of being offended, maybe hurt or subdued, Tommy grinned at the display between Davis and Veemon. As if it didn't matter to him. As if he didn't care that Davis had just not denied the lack of trust in him and his judgment. As if he hadn't noticed it.

Davis didn't want this. This, wariness and mean thoughts, the lack of trust.

Why not change it?

How?

By getting to know him. Understand each other.

And he would.

Davis had decided.

Resolution made, Davis opened his mouth to-

-and got an explosion of water into his face and mouth and he chocked. The ground tiled under him and off topic he mourned how he had almost managed to get his clothes dry only to get another bath.

Davis shouted as the world around him spun and water swallowed him. Clamming his lips shut, Davis tried to keep water out and air in, but it was already to late and the most he could do was hold down on the instinct to cough to not make it worse as he struggled and kicked.

His head broke the surface.

His first split-second thought was the sky had turned dark, but as he spit up more water and struggled to stay above surface with his broken arm he saw it wasn't the sky that was black. It was much worse. It was a digimon.

On impulse, outweighing even his desire to stay over water, his hand reached for his digivice. With his clothes dragging him down, he was quickly submerged again, but Davis didn't mind, holding his digivice in hand and focusing on it. He thought about Veemon, directed his inner focus at Veemon, VeemonVeemon.

He had his eyes closed, but the light of his Digidestined device pierced through is eyelids and Davis started for the surface again, his air running out.

Something grasped him around the middle and water rushed by him as he was pulled. It wasn't ExVeemon.

The arms were unfamiliar, the hold unkind and violent and water pressure forced hit squashed him, invading through his nose, and ears and pressing against his eyes. His head felt like it was imploding and instinctive panic set in.

Then the grip around him was gone and something else pulled him, this time in the opposite direction.

Davis broke the surface again, coughing and spluttering and with tears in his eyes and a worried voice by his ear. He waved all concern away, or at least attempted to when ExVeemon was hit, tumbling through the air.

"ExVeemon!"

Again they crashed into the water, the impact painful this time, but clearer and Davis held on tight as his partner gathered his bearings and attempted to get back into the air. But ExVeemon was hit by something, forced back and forth and up and down, and his hold on Davis was almost desperate.

The boy forced his eyes open, the salty water burning in his eyes. Dark shapes all around them. Small, agile, strong and violent, they were attacking them from all sides, kicking them around like a ball.

A particularly violent impact made Davis' head snap to the sides and his teeth hurt. Air bubbled away from him in red tinged water and after the moment it took for the boy to realize what it meant, red hot anger build up in his chest. Fear too, and panic, but Davis was always one to respond first with anger and when he was helpless even more so.

ExVeemon dodged something long and fast -a harpoon- only to be hit by something else. They sunk deeper into the sea and the lack of air hurt.

I hope you like the chapter for February, because I tell you I was this close to making a note on my profile that February's chapter was canceled. This close. I already had the wording done.

But I managed, somehow, at the cost of possibly significant time that I should be investing into an assignment for University that is due in less than a week and on which I have only just started.

Davis was difficult to write as well.

Please drop a review on your way out and see you next month. (Hopefully that is; if not, it'll be written on my profile.)