Author's Note: Over the last few hours, I have gone back and edited a few of the previous chapters. There is still one or two more to do, but they aren't massively big changes. Also, there is another confrontation between Kimiko and her father in this chapter, unfortunately there are more to come, at least until he starts to come to his senses.
Dedications: N/A
I don't own Digimon. But I do own any original characters that are of my own design.
Title: Expect the Unexpected
Summary: Kimiko is the estranged daughter of Mitsuo Yamaki. For her fifteenth birthday she acquires the Digimon: Labramon and becomes the fourth Digimon Tamer.
Chapter Twelve: Sinister Foreboding
10:25pm.
Kimiko sighed as she looked out of the windows of her father's office, and stared at the dark city of Shinjuku below. Her frequent visits to Hypnos were starting to become tedious, especially since her father was only doing it to keep her away from any bio-emerging Digimon. She hated coming here; she hated it even more now that her father seemed to be ignoring her.
"Kimiko?" Labramon asked, padding over and nudging her tamer's arm. "Are you OK?"
"Mhm," Kimiko said. "I'm just thinking."
"About what?"
"Nothing important."
"Are you sure?"
Kimiko nodded. She looked away from the window and around the dark office. Her book bag lay at the base of a three-seater couch, above which a rather large flat-screen TV was situated. Her father's office was almost like being in an extravagant living room. "Hey, where's Calumon?" she asked, noticing that the small white Digimon was missing.
"I don't know," Labramon said, looking around. "He was here a minute ago."
"Can you sense him or something?"
Labramon lowered her snout to the floor and sniffed. For a dog she had a keen sense of smell, and could almost always pick up a scent. Calumon had a distinctive scent, especially for a Digimon, which meant he was easier to locate. Following the scent trail across the room, Labramon lifted her gaze to a hole in the wall. "He went in there," she said.
"Are you sure?" Kimiko asked, looking at the air vent.
"Positive," Labramon said, sniffing the vent. "Why? What is it?"
"It's where the cool air comes from," Kimiko explained. "It leads to the ventilation shaft. That's like a honeycomb of shafts, all connected together and leading to different parts of the building."
"So, if Calumon is inside that thing...?"
Kimiko nodded and looked down at her partner. "He could be anywhere," she confirmed.
"Great!" Labramon groaned.
~*Expect the Unexpected*~
Riley frowned as she inspected the computer in front of her. "Huh, that's weird," she murmured. "Something's appeared on my radar."
"And I thought we were going to have a quiet night," Tally sighed.
"Hmm. It looks like a wild one, but I... I can't be sure," Riley said, watching as the red radar beeped and made its way across the computer screen in front of her. "The signal's almost unreadable."
"Huh?" Tally asked, confused. "Maybe it's a glitch in the program. Those engineers are so unreliable."
"Wait a minute," Riley said, her confusion deepening. "Now the tracer is acting erratic."
"I'm telling you, it's those engineers," Tally said. "They're always going to karaoke parties instead of checking the equipment like they should."
"According to the tracer, its right under us," Riley said. She looked down to the floor, but couldn't see anything that would indicate that a Digimon had bio-emerged within the building.
Meanwhile, hidden from Riley's sight, and clambering out of the air vent on Tally's side of the room, was Calumon. He whined as he landed on the hard floor, but then giggled and started to jump around happily. "Calumon, zoom zoom, here a zoom, there a zoom. Calumon, zoom zoom, no underwear zoom!" he chanted as he danced around.
Tally raised her goggles and stared at the little Digimon. "Oh! So cute!" she cooed as Calumon looked up at her, his cheeks a bright red and his green eyes shining.
~*Expect the Unexpected*~
Labramon panted as she chased Kimiko through the many floors of the Hypnos building. They had started their search down from her father's office and were now on the ground floor, she hadn't been able to pick up Calumon's scent on any of the floors, and she wasn't getting it now, either.
Kimiko sighed and looked around the reception area. It was relatively empty, save for the receptionist at the desk. Deciding to try her luck, Kimiko walked over and smiled at the young man, no older than her, sitting at the computer. "Hi," she said.
The man looked up. "Hi," he replied. "How can I help?"
"I've... lost my friend," Kimiko said. "He's about this big," she held her hands above one another, showing the small height of Calumon, "looks like an overgrown teddy bear, but he can actually walk and talk."
"Is he an animal?"
"Of sorts," Kimiko nodded.
"What's his name?"
"Calumon."
"'mon'? He wouldn't be a Digimon, would he?"
Kimiko frowned and shook her head, quickly. If she said yes, then she'd give away the fact that she was a tamer, and the receptionist would probably call her father down. "A what?" she asked, feigning innocence.
"Never mind - Sorry, no reports have come in about a wild animal around the building," the man said. "Do you want me to keep a look out?"
"No thank you," Kimiko said. "Although, there is one thing you can do for me."
"What's that?"
"Can you tell me where my father is, please?"
"Your father?"
"Uh-huh," Kimiko said, nodding.
"Who's your father?"
"Mitsuo Yamaki."
The man behind the desk seemed to gulp, and quickly snatched his phone from the desk. He dialed a number, one that Kimiko failed to recognise, and spoke into the receiver. Once he had all the information he needed, the receptionist put down the phone and looked up at Kimiko.
"Your father is busy in the labs," he said. "You've been told to go wait for him in his office, and he'll come find you when he's done."
"Oh," Kimiko said. "OK. Thanks."
She pushed away from the desk and walked back towards the elevator, Labramon followed her. The doors had only just closed on them when Kimiko noticed a button; it was silver in colour, on the panel beneath the others. She hesitated and then pushed it, jumping as the elevator started moving downwards.
"Where are we going?" Labramon asked.
"I don't know," Kimiko said. She wasn't even aware that there was another floor beneath the reception.
~*Expect the Unexpected*~
Those clueless Tamers and their Digimon, so oblivious to what I'm cooking up in my little lab. Well, they'll find out soon enough, Yamaki thought as he walked towards the tank that now contained the Darklizardmon he had obtained from the warehouse district in Shinjuku, there he had had the unfortunate run in with one of Kimiko's friends, Takato and his little red dino Digimon, Guilmon.
He reached the tank and looked over the edge into the swirling deep liquid. DarkLizardmon was hovering in the centre of the tank, unmoving, but that didn't mean it wasn't conscious. The more he stared, the more the creature below him started to awaken to her surroundings.
"What is this place?" the creature asked. "Let me out! I don't want to go back!"
"Sir, uh, we're ready to initiate the data scan," a scientist to Yamaki's left said. He was standing with another scientist who was on his knees checking over the machine separating them. "But the creature may not survive."
"You say that as if I should care," Yamaki said, his eyes never leaving the tank. "It's not as though that thing down there is flesh and blood, you know."
"Excuse me, sir, but it has a real body," the scientist said, surprised by his boss's cold attitude. "It's a life form."
"A worm is more of a life form that this thing," Yamaki said, lifting his gaze to the dinosaur fossil embedded in the wall behind him. "They're just packets of data, computer code, zeros and ones. Their ability to appear in our world is a fluke, but our monstrous friend here is not without its use. By analyzing its data, we can learn how Digimon are created and how they can be destroyed."
The scientists exchanged looks behind Yamaki's back, but looked away as their boss turned his attention onto them.
"Proceed with the scan. I want full power," he said.
"Yes, sir," the younger of the two scientists said. He reached for a dial on the machine and pulled it down, causing the water around DarkLizardmon to churn. The creature, now fully awake and aware, started to struggle, but her resistance was futile as the enzymes in the liquid cut through her, deleting her from existence.
The older scientist sighed as the scan came to an end. "It's gone, sir," he said.
"Not completely," the younger scientist said, staring at the computer screen. "Its data hasn't full disappeared. Just... the body. Should I save the data?"
"I don't see the point," Yamaki said, shaking his head. "We got all the information we needed from the scanning procedure. Eliminate anything that's left."
"What?" the youngest scientist gasped, looking up. His friend, and partner, shook his head quickly, as Yamaki stared at something from across the room. "Uh, yes, sir," the youngest said, reaching for another dial. "Destroying all particles now."
The tank burned with a bright blue light.
"Get used to it," Yamaki said, looking back down. "We'll scan as many as we have to till they're all gone."
Unknown to Yamaki, hiding in a crouch just beneath him, listening and watching everything that was being said and done to the Digimon inside the tank, was Kimiko and Labramon. The two had arrived shortly after him and quickly felt the desire to hide in order to find out what was going on. But they honestly didn't expect to find this.
What are you up to, Dad? Kimiko thought, staring at the floor in silent confusion.
~*Expect the Unexpected*~
"Renamon, when you fought Harpymon, you didn't load her data," Rika said. She was at home, sitting on the floor outside of her bedroom and talking to her Digimon about their latest battle. "That's the first time I've seen you do that. Why?"
"I didn't need too," Renamon replied, appearing beside her partner.
"But how will you digivolve?"
"I think Digimon with human partners don't need to absorb data," Renamon explained. "Something special about their relationship with their Tamers makes them digivolve."
"I guess the two of us are like that, huh?" Rika asked. She was still trying to wrap her head around the whole 'partner' deal that had been struck when she had stepped into protect Renamon. She knew that it had always been there, deep down, she just needed an extra nudge - or a push - in order to find it.
"I guess so," Renamon nodded.
"I never thought I'd feel this way," Rika admitted. It was a strange feeling. Kimiko had always spoken about caring for the Digimon, the good ones at least, and she was like a Digimon-magnet; but Rika had never once believed she would ever feel love and compassion for something. They had always seemed like weak emotions, but now she could tell they were stronger than anticipated. "It's kind of weird."
"What?"
"It's like I can't remember what I used to be so angry about," Rika answered. "I don't even feel like poking fun at Takato and Henry's silly Digimon anymore."
"You're right, that is weird," Renamon said, amusedly. "What about Kimiko?" she asked.
Rika hesitated. She remembered back to yesterday, to when she had found Kimiko alone and crying at the park. Yesterday she was still fighting with herself, struggling to understand the new emotions she was feeling, but she still felt compelled to stay with Kimiko, just to make sure she was alright.
"I'll always call her 'Princess'," Rika said. "But yeah, I don't feel like poking fun at her anymore, either. You know, she was right, about this love and compassion thing... I just didn't want to believe it. But it's OK, I guess."
"It's only OK if it works," Renamon said.
"Well, it works for Kimiko."
Renamon nodded. It did indeed.
~*Expect the Unexpected*~
After escaping the labs, and locating Calumon, Kimiko returned to her father's office to collect her backpack. She stopped short as her father left the office and wandered down the hall towards the elevator.
"Quick, you guys, hide!" Kimiko hissed at Labramon. The dog grabbed Calumon and disappeared into a store cupboard just as Yamaki reached the double doors.
"And where have you been?" Yamaki asked.
"I went to stretch my legs," Kimiko replied. "Why? Were you worried about me?"
"I knew you couldn't have gone far. But do refrain from walking around unsupervised," Yamaki said. "Not everything we do here is public knowledge. I'd lose my job if my superiord found out."
"And we wouldn't want that to happen now, would we?" Kimiko muttered.
Yamaki narrowed his eyes at her. "I think it's time you went home," he said. "You do have school tomorrow."
"Fine," Kimiko said. "I just need to get my things from your office." She side-stepped her father and disappeared into the room, she quickly stuffed her things back into her backpack and left. She was surprised to see her father waiting for her. "I'm a big girl," she said. "I can see myself out."
"I'll take you home," Yamaki said. "It's late."
Kimiko shrugged. "I can walk," she insisted.
"No. I'd feel better -"
"Don't try and pull the 'I'd feel better knowing you're safe' card," Kimiko interrupted. "If you actually cared about my well-being then you wouldn't leave me alone for hours, sometimes even days, at a time. Clearly my well-being is the furthest thing on your list, and you're only insisting now because you think I'll run off to meet Henry or Takato."
Yamaki's jaw clenched. But he didn't rise to the bait.
"I'm not going to my friends," Kimiko said, "and even if I was, it's got nothing to do with you."
"While you are my responsibility and living under my rule, what you do is everything to do with me," Yamaki said. "Whether you like it or not, Kimiko, you're my daughter, and you will do as I say, when I say it."
Kimiko glared at him and turned to the supply closet. Right now she didn't care if her father saw Labramon or Calumon, she wanted to get them and leave. With the door wide enough, Labramon padded out, Calumon riding on his back again.
"I told you not to bring her here!" Yamaki growled.
"I don't care what you want," Kimiko said. "I'm done leaving Labramon alone for hours on end, just because you don't like her. She's my friend, for a while she was my only friend, the only person, other than Mum, to actually care about me. I won't repay her by abandoning her just because my father doesn't appreciate her."
"You should never have been allowed to keep her."
"It wasn't your decision to make," Kimiko argued. "Grandpappy saw my desperation for a friend, and decided to do something about it. It's the more than you've ever done for me."
"Kimiko..."
Kimiko pulled back, away from her dad. "I've said it before and I'll say it again, all you care about is your job," she said, tears swimming in her hazel eyes. "You never cared about Mum or me. If you did, then you'd have at least tried to make things work, you wouldn't have abandoned us." She shook her head. "I don't even know why I'm still trying. You're never going to change."
Yamaki sighed as the elevator doors closed on his daughter, blocking her from his sight. He wanted to say something, knew that he should've, but couldn't find the right words. Had what Kimiko said been true? In his eyes, he hadn't abandoned her or her mother, he'd just tried to give them the life he had always wanted for them.
But maybe he was going about it all wrong.
Maybe the life he wanted for them, wasn't the life that they wanted for themselves.
~*Expect the Unexpected*~
Not long after storming out of Hypnos, Kimiko slowed her pace to a soft walk and sighed heavily. She had just pasted the Shinjuku guardrail when she fully came to a halt and braced herself against the side, her head bowed against the setting sun to the East.
Her body was tense, and her chest rose and fell rapidly as she tried to calm herself down. How dare her father treat her like someone other than his daughter, how dare he try to tell her what she could and couldn't have. What did he care if she had a pet? Labramon was her best friend; did her father truly want his only child to be alone in life?
"Kimiko...?" Labramon asked, as Calumon carefully climbed up onto Kimiko's shoulder and peered into her face.
Kimiko's eyes were closed against the raging emotions inside her small body, and the tears that were starting pool together behind her eyelids.
Calumon's ears retracted and he looked down at Labramon. "What do we do?" he asked.
"I don't think there is anything we can do, Calumon," Labramon answered. "Things are usually pretty tense between Kimiko and her father, but it seems lately things are coming to blows. They don't usually argue this much."
"Oh..." Calumon said, staring wide-eyed at Kimiko. Out of all the Tamers, it was Kimiko that he shared a close and special bond with. She was so caring and kind. "Labramon?"
"Yeah?"
"You know that building we were in?"
Labramon nodded.
"I don't like it," Calumon said, his voice child-like. "There's something funny about it. Something not nice."
"Yeah, I know," Labramon said. "But... let's talk about this later, alright?" she added, hastily glancing at Kimiko, but it seemed the blonde tamer was no longer paying attention.
Calumon nodded, before squeaking as he was roughly shoved off of Kimiko's shoulder by Impmon.
"Hey!" Labramon barked, darting behind Kimiko and catching Calumon on her back.
"Ooh! Did I scare the adorable Calumon?" Impmon mocked. "Not so tough when you're tumbling like a sack of potatoes, huh, fat face?"
"You're a big meany weenie!" Calumon argued. "No wonder you don't have any friends!"
"Ahh, what good are friends?" Impmon asked. "You run around being all cute and friendly, and what's that done for you? You can't even Digivolve. No tamer wants you as a Digimon. They just put up with you 'cause you're - what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, yeah, pathetic."
Kimiko blinked and glanced at Impmon. "Who you calling 'pathetic'," she asked hotly. "Calumon doesn't need a tamer to have friends, and you're hardly the Digimon to talk to about Digivolution. No self-respecting Tamer wants you because, as far as we're concerned, you're not worth training."
"Hey!" Impmon growled, firing up a mini fireball. He threw it at Kimiko but it was deflected by Labramon and her 'RetrieverG' defense.
"Do that again," Labramon said, "and I'll download your data faster than you can blink."
Impmon growled, but lowered his arm.
"Impmon, is there anyone you do like?" Calumon asked.
"Nah, you pretty much all make me sick," Impmon replied. "What a young Digimon like you needs isn't friends, but some good advice, and it's your lucky day, 'cause I'm in the sharing kind of mood. Life, my friend, is all about the survival of the fittest that's when the best and the brightest - that's me -"
Labramon snorted in silent laughter.
"- wipes the floor with the meek and the weak. That's you," Impmon continued, growling at Labramon for her interruption. "So if I blast you to kingdom come and absorb your data like I'm planning on doing, don't take it personal. It's nature taking its course."
Calumon quivered in fear.
Pushing away from the guardrail, Kimiko scooped up Calumon and cradled him in her arms. She then turned her haughtily glare onto Impmon. "Even try it," she warned, "and you'll find out what it is like to be on the receiving end of a Digivolution."
"You think I'm afraid of you, you snotty-nosed brat!" Impmon yelled, raising his hand again.
Labramon growled, barring her teeth and lowered herself into a crouch. Impmon jumped backwards in alarm, and possibly fear, as the Labramon prepared herself to lunge. She was overly protective of Kimiko, especially now when her human was in so much distress.
Quickly realising that Labramon wasn't baring her teeth at Impmon, Kimiko looked around at the Hypnos building as a stream of bright blue light erupted from the top of one of the towers and parted the clouds of the sky above.
"What's happening, huh? What you staring..." Impmon turned around, his last word drowning out before it could even pass his lips as he stared at the giant vortex in the sky.
"Kimiko, something's coming," Labramon growled. "It's a Digimon, and he's really big."
"How big is 'really big'?" Kimiko asked.
"Bigger, and possibly stronger, than anything we've ever faced before."
"Ohh..."
Copyrighted ©
A/N: Unfortunately I will be going away this weekend, Friday-Monday, and therefore won't be able to update. I will try to get another updated out sometime Thursday (tomorrow) but I make no promises.
Anyway, review please, and let me know what you think. Thanks.
Chapter written by xXxKaraBeckerCutterxXx
Chapter updated 12 February, 2015 at 12:48am