Chapter Text
The battle had seemed to go well, at first. Jesmon, Gankoomon, and the Sistermon had arrived before the newest wave of human invaders could kill too many Digimon. They had figured out that if they targeted the humans, the Gizumon would refocus on them and attack them instead of the fleeing innocents. If all the humans were knocked out, the Gizumon would stop entirely, and could be disposed of without fear of being permanently deleted.
Of course, ideally, the humans could then be taken into custody and interrogated for their motives, put on trial (at Omnimon’s insistence), and deleted. Duftmon had muttered about saving a Gizumon to permanently delete the humans, but so far that had not happened. Both because they weren’t willing to spare a Gizumon, especially when there were live humans around, and because they hadn’t gotten to that stage yet.
No interrogations had taken place since the humans refused to wake up once they were knocked out. Examon, the Royal Knights’ chief medical officer, said that he thought it was an odd defense mechanism, a kind of stasis that would preserve them until they could reach medical attention. In this stasis of theirs, they didn’t require food, water, or air. However, their wounds refused to heal. He had taken to giving them medical attention in the hopes that the stasis was triggered by them reaching a certain damage threshold, but not even the best medicine the draconian Royal Knight gave them improved their conditions.
Jesmon had voiced unease with their stasis, saying that it felt wrong somehow, and had asked how badly damaged they were, but Examon said that they should be fine. Once they left their stasis, they would likely require some more medical attention, but the damage couldn’t have been critical since none of them had dedigivolved, nor had any of them returned to their Digieggs.
Jesmon had reluctantly subsided at this diagnosis, but he’d also started avoiding the prisoner’s block, and being gentler with the human invaders he attacked. He still knocked them out—Gankoomon had trained him too well to leave an enemy awake and at his back—but he moved slower around them, didn’t hit as hard, and avoided using the cutting edges of his blades when fighting them.
Sistermon Noir and Sistermon Ciel had scolded him for being too gentle with the beings that were trying to permanently delete him, but Jesmon simply couldn’t be any less gentle. Part of him screamed that they were small and frail and needed to be treated gently.
Of course, this backfired on him eventually. Jesmon was preparing to destroy a group of Gizumon with his Un Pour Tous, almost launched the attack, and then caught sight of a head of pale orange hair on a human sneaking around behind the Gizumon and—
small frail human with orange-red hair and not blue-blue eyes careful he had to protect Ta—
froze.
In that split second of stillness, the three Gizumon fired at him. One struck him in his left leg, the second on his right shoulder pauldron, and the third dead center of his chest.
The world burst into agony.
Jesmon wailed, and Gankoomon and the Sistermon whipped around to see Jesmon begin to disintegrate. Yellow ate up his body from three points outwards, data flaking off to be devoured by the Gizumon’s data tanks.
Someone else screamed. Jesmon was dimly aware of Gankoomon’s Hinukamuy flaring up and disintegrating the ground around him, of the three Sistermon simultaneously entering their Awakened modes and sprinting for him, of the blinding pain that tinted his vision gold. Then he disintegrated fully and knew only—
(Aiba Takumi was leaving the arcade. His twin sister, Ami, and their friends were with him, jostling each other. At the front of the group, Nokia was ribbing Arata for failing so horribly at Dance Dance Revolution: Apocalypse Waltz. Behind them, Ami was skipping as she walked, one had gesturing wildly and the other arm-in-arm with Yuugo so the sickly boy wouldn’t feel bad about needing someone to lean on. He was still weak from his extended hospital stay, but proud enough to not want to lean on someone even when he needed to.
Yuuko was walking next to Takumi in the back of the group. She kept an eye on their siblings, and Takumi gave her a helplessly fond smile when he saw the slight upward curl to her mouth. She was so much brighter and happier now that Yuugo was out of his sickroom.
Ami twisted suddenly, peering over her shoulder and beaming. “Hey, you two! Speed up some! We’re never going to get to the ice cream parlor if you two keep dragging your feet!”
“If we speed up any, we’ll be walking alongside you, and taking up the whole sidewalk,” Yuuko said.
Ami bounced some more on the balls of her feet. “Oh, come on, don’t be like that! There’s like, nobody here right now. It’s okay if we hog the sidewalk for a bit, right?” She turned that sun-bright smile at Takumi.
Takumi opened his mouth to tell her that there were in fact people just up ahead, so they shouldn’t hog the sidewalk. Then something tore inside of him, something that clawed at his insides and ripped them out, stringy tendon by heart-shred by bone-shard. Something that burned and felt wrong, like it was acid eating up all that he was and pooling into the empty space where his vitals used to be.
Takumi screamed, blood-curling and hurt as he doubled over. His hands scrabbled at his chest, clutching at the front of his shirt, scratching furrows into his skin. Takumi’s nails drew blood on his collarbone, and he sobbed on the next inhale, screamed again when he got air in his lungs because someone had just carved out his heart and it hurt. Takumi wanted it back. It was never meant to leave him—it was part of him—he needed to heal the hole, needed to sew the missing part of his soul back onto his.
His legs gave out, his friends swarmed him, frantic, and the people ahead sprinted to his side. Someone called an ambulance. Takumi was wholly unaware of this, of anything but the soul-deep throb that came from the other half of his soul being consumed by man-made monstrosities.
His vision burned gold, and strange golden pixels flared around him. The gilded geometric aura roiled around him, rippling like a mourning shroud, built up into a wildfire. Then a thin column spiked skywards, like the base of a mushroom cloud, only to flatten like a saucer two feet above Takumi’s head. More of the aura poured into the disk, and then—
reality tore—
and a green grid gate-of-worlds opened above Takumi. The edge of it was rimmed in gold, pixelated, sustained by thin streams of the golden glow. The rest of it rushed into the portal, spilling over to the other side.
[Gankoomon’s horrified cry of “Jesmon!” was swallowed up by Hinukamuy obliterating the humans and their damnable Gizumon that dared stand between him and his son’s side.
Blanc got to Jesmon’s side first, but even she was too late—Jesmon’s data disintegrated, and most was absorbed by his killers. The humans they defended didn’t last long to her fury, and she turned her trident on the Gizumon’s tanks in her desperation. “Give him back!” she screamed at them. “Give Jesmon back!”
Noir shot one Gizumon in the eye and then tried to crack its tank open, hoping as her sister did that if she opened it, Jesmon’s data could reconstruct itself. But the data left behind simply faded away, leaving only a few scraps of glittering binary behind.
She crumpled, sobs wracking her frame, and the last of Jesmon’s killers turned its gaze on the shaking Sistermon. It made to fire; it never did. Ciel ended it before it could.
Then the sky split right over where Jesmon was permanently deleted. Gilded pixels rimmed a hole, the insides of which were a green grid over void black. A shrill, agonized scream drifted out of the gate-of-worlds, accompanied by a flood of the golden squares. They pooled around the few remaining scraps of Jesmon’s data not yet absorbed, feelers reaching out to collect the bits of binary remaining in the tank Noir broke. More feelers shoved their way into the collection tubes of the other Gizumon, retreating with orbs of shimmering data wrapped up inside them.
The geometric mass folded in on itself. Binary glitter was sorted, stacked together, glued in place by the glowing pixels. Missing fragments were filled in with more of the alien mass, until it had restructured the data fragments into an ovular shape, which then glitched once, twice, three times—and reformatted into a gray Digiegg on the third glitch.
The otherworldly scream petered out into terrified sobbing, and more of the geometric glitter spilled into the Digital World. It wrapped the Digiegg—Jesmon’s egg—up into a blaze not unlike a blanket. Then the thin string of pixels connecting the blaze to the portal yanked, reeling Jesmon’s egg into the portal. As soon as the bottom of the golden aura passed through the gate, it snapped shut, leaving no trace of itself.]
The pillar of golden geometry retreated towards Takumi, and from the tear in reality came a carefully cradled egg the size of a human skull. It drifted downwards, then slightly sideways, as Takumi rolled onto his side. His arms loosened from their death grip on his chest, and the egg was tucked into them. As soon as it settled in his grasp, Takumi’s sobs—which he’d transitioned to once the tearing stopped—calmed into hiccups, and he curled protectively around it. The aura dimmed to a barely noticeable haze over his skin, the only bright spot the layer still surrounding the egg.
He was vaguely aware of someone gingerly touching his shoulder, of a voice he thought might be Arata’s saying, “Ami, don’t—he’s glowing.” Somebody, maybe the first person who touched him, tried to pry his fingers away from the egg, and Takumi made a hurt keening noise in the pit of his throat. He curled tighter around the egg, making sure that the other half of his soul couldn’t be torn away again. Takumi tucked his chin over the top of the egg, and then exhaustion hit him like a sledgehammer to the head, and he passed out.)
—the steady b-bump of someone’s heart. The sound echoed through Jesmon’s shell. It was soothing, comforting. It promised safety and love and security. It promised Jesmon that he was loved and cared for, that he belonged with the source of that noise.
Jesmon wasn’t aware of much yet, his data still reconstructing itself from the Digicore backup his partner had provided through their bond, but the first sleepy, barely-there thought he had was that he loved the source of that noise, and that his devotion to it—to him—would be as steady as the heartbeat that lulled him to sleep.
Chapter 2: In the Wake of the Gate
Summary:
The aftermath of Takumi healing and summoning Jesmon. Alphamon listens, talks, and unintentionally channels Kyoko. Not exactly in that order. Meanwhile, Kyoko doesn't believe in Digimon, but she will if it gets her some answers.
Notes:
I spent the last two days in a car with nothing to do but write, so this came out pretty quickly. Again, this is dedicated to hallowed_nebulae, who got me into the main ship, and who's posting of chapter one of a twenty chapter fic deserves celebration. I hope you enjoy almost 9k words of people being confused about...well, everything that happened last chapter.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Alphamon flipped through Kentaurosmon’s newest report pensively. Nothing in it held any hints about the death of Merukimon—in fact, aside from a few troubling mentions of government interference in Kentaurosmon’s partner’s organization, nothing seemed useful.
He shut the report with a sigh and rubbed a hand over his face, pausing with his palm covering his mouth as he stared pensively at the ground.
“Nothing useful, again?” Examon asked.
Alphamon looked up in time to see Examon and their fellow Knights trooping into the room. Examon set Ambrosius down next to Alphamon, the thicker part of his tail propping the lance up, and a wing mantled itself around Alphamon’s shoulders.
Gallantmon crossed his arms. “Some of the regional reports suggested that those humans working for Kentaurosmon’s human were poking their noses into Merukimon’s business. Surely Kentaurosmon has something to say about that.”
Alphamon shook his head. “Nothing helpful. Apparently, there’s some kind of government interference going on, especially in the wake of SaberLeomon’s failed invasion of the Human World. The team of humans that were the last to see Merukimon alive haven’t come back yet, so statements can’t be taken from them.”
Duftmon spoke up then, “As I have said before, Alphamon, I believe that Kentaurosmon’s current source of information has run dry. The only news of importance that Kentaurosmon has been able to report recently is of SaberLeomon’s invasion of the Human World, and frankly, we could have discerned that ourselves. The missing Digimon in the area were clues enough that business was afoot, and we did not need Kentaurosmon’s report to know that the invasion failed when none returned. Kentaurosmon must move on.”
Alphamon said, “Kentaurosmon’s partner is an important part of the humans’ anti-Digimon defense force, through whom much of the human government’s decisions are conveyed. He is also the only one known to have a gate-creator and one of his team members was able to create a way to track gate openings inside their city. Given time to implement their scanning technology on a wider scale, we may soon have a way to track all gates, natural, human-made, and Gizumon-bearing. Kentaurosmon’s current location is too important for him to move just yet.”
Duftmon narrowed his eyes. “I am quite certain that Kentaurosmon could find a more useful source who is higher up in the authority food chain, and still find a way to monitor the data. That human who believes them to be partners,” and here Duftmon sneered a bit, “is emotionally attached. Such a connection could be leveraged even once Kentaurosmon—”
“Examon!” A voice roared from outside the room.
Examon straightened, wing dropping from Alphamon’s shoulders. Even as the great dragon hurried to the doorway, and Alphamon followed, the black-armored Knight couldn’t help but mourn the loss of the touch. The World Tree was always chilly, and dragons ran hot.
“In here,” Examon called back. “I’m in the recreational room! Who’s injured?”
Somewhere behind them, Magnamon said softly, “Jesmon’s group was supposed to be fighting Gizumon.”
A quiet smack sounded, and UlforceVeedramon said, “I’m sure they’re fine. But stop scratching, Magnamon. You’re going to wear all the fur off your pouch.”
Meekly, Magnamon said, “Sorry…”
Gankoomon and the Sistermon stormed into the room. Gankoomon’s fists were clenched, Hinukamuy writhing angrily above his shoulders. Sistermon Ciel’s expression was forbidding as she steered Sistermon Blanc along. Blanc was silent, staring blankly at the ground. She didn’t seem aware of her surroundings, and Ciel had to tug on her to stop her from walking into a cushion. The only thing she seemed to be doing on her own was clutching her trident with a white-knuckled grip. Sistermon Noir stumbled after them into the room, weeping, one hand clenched in the hem of Gankoomon’s jacket.
Examon skimmed them all with a medic’s eye, looking for injuries. He found no outstanding injuries but—
“Where’s Jesmon?” Alphamon asked.
Noir sobbed, letting go of Gankoomon to hug herself. Ciel put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
Gankoomon said grimly, “The Gizumon got him.”
There was a loud inhale, as if everyone else had gasped simultaneously.
Crusadermon responded first. “I’m so sorry to hear that. What happened?”
Dynasmon’s feet clopped against the ground as he shifted his weight and dipped his head a little. “Jesmon’s much faster than the Gizumon are. How did they get the drop on him?”
Gankoomon shook his head as Ciel steered her sisters over to the cushion and sat them down. “We don’t know,” he said. “He was guarding one end of the battlefield. We just heard him scream, and by the time Blanc got to his side, he’d disintegrated, and the Gizumon had absorbed most of his data.”
Ciel said, “Something strange happened right afterwards, though. That’s what we wanted Knight Examon’s opinion on.”
“Strange?” Alphamon asked.
Ciel nodded, then continued, “Blanc and Noir cracked open two of the three data tanks. Most of the data dissipated, but some of it remained. Then, some kind of—actually, it looked like the gates the humans use. But one of those gates opened right over where Jesmon was when he was…” She trailed off for a moment, scrubbing a hand roughly over her eyes. Her voice was raw with pain as she said, “where he was when he was hit.”
Grimacing, Gankoomon said, “Do you remember that human who was partnered to my old friend BanchoLeomon? The human produced a pink aura that he used to help BanchoLeomon achieve Burst Mode. Some golden, geometric…stuff that looked like a recolored version of that aura flowed out of the portal.”
“Syakomon shell coral pink, you mean,” Crusadermon said quietly, “but I take your point.”
Dynasmon shook his head, finally raising it from the more aggressive lowered position it had been in. “I don’t think the color matters, Crusadermon.”
Immediately, she countered with, “For all we know, it does. We don’t know precisely how humans produce that aura, or what it’s supposed to do, or, apparently, why some are different colors. I would keep careful track of the colors on the off chance that the functions are color coded. I’ve certainly never seen BanchoLeomon’s human pour its aura through a human gate before, let alone to do who knows what.”
“Color coded? Really, Crusadermon?” Dynasmon said skeptically.
Crusadermon raised her chin imperiously. “The hide color is the only way to tell a Virus-typed MetalGreymon apart from a Vaccine-typed one. There is no reason to assume that some similar rule doesn’t apply to human auras.” She turned back to Gankoomon. “Please, continue.”
Gankoomon did. “Once the mass passed through the gate, it collected the glowing binary bits that hadn’t dissipated when the data tanks were opened. It—” He paused suddenly, visibly struggling for a way to describe what he’d seen.
Ciel saved him from having to come up with a description. “It seemed to be reconstructing the data. It put the binary together, substituting itself wherever there were empty patches, and created an ovular shape. Then it…it seemed to glitch a few times, and on the third time, it reformed as an egg. A Digiegg.”
Gankoomon said, “It was grey, with a red bottom and white speckles all over. I’ll admit, I haven’t seen Hackmon eggs in years, but if I had to guess, that was a Hackmon egg that reformed.”
Examon frowned, one claw tapping against Ambrosius and his tail coiling itself into knots at his feet. “Jesmon was deleted by Gizumon, but his egg still reformed?”
Ciel nodded. “Yes, with the help of that aura the humans generate. For what it’s worth, there was this terrible screaming coming through the gate as well. I have no idea what was causing it—perhaps that was whatever human that produced the healing aura? But when Jesmon’s egg reformatted, the screaming died out and was replaced with sobbing.” She folded her arms across her chest and added dryly, “You see now why we wanted Knight Examon’s opinion on this?”
Examon’s tail stopped knotting itself and took Ambrosius so that he could fold his arms in thought. The tail tip continued flicking back and forth. “That’s odd…perhaps there’s something to Crusadermon’s theory, then, that the different auras are color coded by function. But why the screaming? And why would a human heal Jesmon?”
Crusadermon tipped her head smugly at Dynasmon as Examon’s voice began to trail off, and Dynasmon glowered back at her before looking away. Gallantmon decided to take advantage of the pause to bring up another point.
He said, “But Jesmon was a Royal Knight, and we all lack the ability to digivolve or be reborn—that was sealed away during our Knighting ceremonies as a sign of our fidelity to His Majesty. Kentaurosmon had to have his seal program disabled before he went off on his spying mission, and I know Jesmon had his applied. We were all there when he was Knighted. How did his rebirth program reactivate?”
Gankoomon said, “I don’t understand either. But Jesmon’s egg reformatted, and I’m happy with that miracle.”
Magnamon spoke up then, “But—but if Jesmon’s egg reformatted, and you needed to talk to Examon, why didn’t you take his egg with you for Examon to look over? I don’t see his egg with you at all.”
Noir buried her face in her hands, and Blanc flinched. Immediately, Magna shrunk into himself guiltily, hands going to his belly pouch to worry at the fur again. UlforceVeedramon promptly batted them away before tucking his younger brother under his wing.
The grim look returned to Gankoomon’s face. “The aura retreated into the gate after it was finished repairing Jesmon’s egg. It took his egg with it. The gate closed as soon as the bottom of his egg was through, so we weren’t able to retrieve Jesmon’s Digiegg.” Each sentence was short and clipped, to the point. Gankoomon’s nails were digging furrows into his arms.
Silence descended for a moment.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Craniamon said. “You have an unknown human who repairs Jesmon’s egg while screaming in agony, then is reduced to sobbing and egg-naps Jesmon? Who knows what the humans are doing on the other side of that gate? For all we know, they could have tortured the human into providing the energy, all so they could capture a Royal Knight.”
UlforceVeedramon said, “But that brings up another question. How did they know that they’d encountered a Royal Knight? Was the encounter pre-planned somehow, or do they have some way of communicating across worlds?”
Alphamon shook his head to banish that thought before it had enough time to settle in and start a panic. “Kentaurosmon’s reports so far don’t indicate that humans are capable of communicating across worlds. However,” he added reluctantly, seeing Duftmon turn to him, “they also don’t indicate that these invasions and the Gizumon exist in the first place, at least as far as his human partner is aware.”
Duftmon was not appeased by this last part. “Kentaurosmon’s partner offers some sparse interesting information every once in a long while. However, it is insufficient for the investigation and as of late, the vast majority of his reports have become repetitions of “I do not know.” This cannot stand! Merukimon has been permanently deleted, Jesmon has somehow been both permanently deleted, revived, and egg-napped all in a few minutes at most, and yet all Kentaurosmon has to say is that his source professes ignorance? As I said, Alphamon, Kentaurosmon’s source has run dry. He must move on to a newer, more useful one. I am certain that by this point, he must know of several who are higher-ranking than his current one.”
Gallantmon crossed his arms across his chest, disgruntled. “It’s all well and fine to say that Duftmon, but I’d like to see you try and convince him to switch. I’ve brought it up multiple times before, and he refuses to contemplate doing that. Keeps saying that his current human is his partner and leaving would be wrong.”
Magnamon’s chin dipped down in disapproval, but he didn’t say anything at first. His hands tried to go back to tugging at the pouch fur but were moved away again by UlforceVeedramon’s. After a moment of working up the courage, Magnamon spoke up softly, shyly. Everyone refrained from making eye contact with him, lest the attention frighten him into silence.
Magnamon said, “Kentaurosmon has gotten attached.”
There was a brief lull as the others waited for him to finish his thought, before realizing that was all he had to say.
UlforceVeedramon then wondered aloud, “Is this a side effect of the aura? That BanchoLeomon was also dead set on his “partner”, and he was exposed to the aura as well. Perhaps it does something to them, makes them more dependent on their humans, when they use the humans’ power to digivolve.”
Another uneasy silence descended. The Knights eyed each other, unable to prove or disprove that theory. Finally, Alphamon said, “We should take this to His Majesty. He needs to know what happened to Jesmon.”
Alphamon closed his eyes and sighed sharply, rubbing the palm of his hand over his mouth. “I wish Omnimon was here. He seemed to understand humans better than all of us—than even Kentaurosmon did before he left for his mission—and I’m certain that he’d be able to answer some of these questions.”
Duftmon’s voice was sharp and scathing as he said, “Omnimon made it explicitly clear that his loyalties lay with the humans when he absconded BanchoLeomon’s so-called partner. Frankly, given his inexplicable familiarity with humans and their societal structure, I see no reason not to assume that he has been infected with their dependence. It would certainly explain why a Knight once so loyal to Yggdrasil would betray his liege lord and spring His Majesty’s prisoner from its prison.”
Alphamon didn’t answer that statement but frowned at him for a moment. Then he picked up Kentaurosmon’s most recent report and said, “Come. His Majesty awaits us.”
Ciel glanced at her sisters, then cleared her throat. “It would be impolite for ones so lowly as us to appear before His Majesty, and we have had a long and tiring day—”
Gankoomon waved her off. “It’s fine. There’s no need for you to be so formal, Ciel. Take your sisters and get some rest. I’ll pass on His Majesty’s verdict when I return.”
She nodded, then pulled both Noir and Blanc to their feet, steered them out the door and down a hallway. The Knights watched them go, before heading in the opposite direction.
(Kuremi Kyoko pressed the heel of her hand over her face, hiding her exasperation. Then her gaze flitted from the fifty-something, blue-haired doctor to the hospital room’s new occupant. Aiba Takumi slept soundly, one arm lying limply to his side with a heart monitor wire attached. The other was curled tightly around an egg roughly the size of his head. It was grey, with a scarlet bottom and white speckles.
Takumi hadn’t let go of it since he’d collapsed. Every time someone had tried to take it from him, he’d whimpered in pain. Even the gentlest of tugging prompted a hurt reaction.
Her other intern had called her in a panic at the hospital, practically incoherent, and honestly, having heard what happened from Ami and Takumi’s friends, Kyoko still wasn’t sure what had happened. It all sounded a bit surreal.
But it was certainly more believable than what this doctor was saying. Ami wasn’t prone to exaggerating, especially when her twin’s health was on the line. What Dr. Kido was saying was just plain insane.
“So,” Kyoko said dryly, “you mean to tell me that there’s an entire world of digital monsters out there, one of them is functionally soulmates with my intern, and he collapsed because he had to reboot part of his soul? Pull the other one, it’s got bells attached.”
Dr. Kido ran a hand through his hair and said, “I know it sounds insane. That’s why nobody really talks about it. But that’s the truth. Now, whether you’ll remember it five minutes from now is another story.”
Ami, blessed child that she is, didn’t let that pass at all. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded. “You gonna go all Men in Black mind wipe conspiracy on us?”
“Men in—No!” Dr. Kido spluttered.
“Why not? You’ve clearly gone off the deep end already.”
Kyoko made a mental note to give her intern a raise. Wait, she didn’t pay the Aiba twins. More coffee then. She’d had some interesting ideas involving horseradish and cake frosting.
Dr. Kido flailed a hand at them. He’d been much more composed an hour ago, before Kyoko showed up and asked him why he hadn’t taken the giant painted ostrich egg away. “You literally won’t remember, not unless you move—well, okay, we don’t technically know if you can remember Digimon crossover events outside of Hikarigaoka, since we never asked anyone who moved outside the limits, but that’s beside the point.”
Kyoko immediately jumped on this very specific detail. “What do you mean outside of Hikarigaoka? What’s so special about Hikarigaoka?”
Dr. Kido sighed again, pulling his glasses off and cleaning them. This was the tenth time Kyoko had seen him do this in the past half-hour alone. He hadn’t done it nearly as often when she’d first walked in.
Sliding them back on, Dr. Kido said, “Okay, evidently you’re not going to drop this. So, as I said before, there’s a gate-of-worlds that Aiba-san used to pull his partner into this world. This gate technically covers the entirety of Hikarigaoka. Think of it as a door left cracked open. Just because the door is ajar doesn’t mean that something is coming through. The Hikarigaoka-File Island gate is perpetually cracked open, though people only occasionally pass through it. Uh.”
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Just so we’re clear, the gate-of-worlds links to multiple worlds, and we use the term to indicate that the destination is unknown. It’s usually set to the Digital World, but we know of two other worlds that it links to, and trust me, you do not want to see the Dark Ocean. The Digital World may not always be the most welcoming of worlds, but it’s at least hospitable. The Dark Ocean is always welcoming, but it’s also very definitely inhospitable—best case scenario, you keep getting kidnapped by it and nearly drown each time. Worst, you vanish to never again be seen.”
Dr. Kido took a deep breath. “Anyway, like I said, it usually links to the Digital World. File Island is the location in the Digital World that the Hikarigaoka gate maps to. If you overlay a map of the city with a map of the island, the silhouettes match near perfectly, give or take a few miles of shoreline and residential districts. If you pass through the gate, you’ll end up in whatever the corresponding location is in the other world.
“Aiba-san basically opened the door all the way and pulled his partner through the doorway. Which is draining because, aside from having to reboot his soul, Aiba-san had to force a tear in reality to open even further pretty much on sheer force of will. This would be why he’s currently asleep.”
Dr. Kido shifted his weight from foot to foot and began cleaning his glasses for the eleventh time. “Now, anything passing through the gate causes electrical interference. Humans and low-level Digimon passing through doesn’t create a lot of interference. We and they have “small file sizes,” so to speak. The larger and higher-level a Digimon is, the more interference it causes. This is why Hikarigaoka has more electrical problems than any other city in Japan.”
The hospital room door opened suddenly, startling Kyoko and Ami into turning to look at it. A brown-haired man in a suit strolled in. For some reason, he was carrying a worn green duffel bag labelled Odaiba Middle School Soccer Team. Kyoko and Ami frowned at him for intruding on Takumi’s hospital room when he didn’t seem to be one of the workers. Out of the corner of her eye, Kyoko saw Dr. Kido’s shoulders sag in relief.
“Hey,” the guy said cheerfully. “I’m Kamiya Taichi. You know, the city mayor? I’m also the leader of the Odaiba Summer Camp group. Joe’s another member; we took an unplanned field trip together to the Digital World forty years ago while we were at summer camp. How’re you guys doing?”
Kyoko folded her arms across her chest and raised a judgmental eyebrow at him. “Dragging in the city mayor? Well, now, doesn’t this look like an attempt to silence us.”
Kamiya’s eyebrows went up in surprise, and he held up his hands defensively. “Whoa, hey, no, that’s not what I’m here for.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand sheepishly. “Although now that you mention it, it does seem pretty sketchy, doesn’t it? But I swear, I’m just here to provide a little more info. And proof.”
He set down the duffel bag and unzipped it. “Speaking of, say hi to the proof.”
Two pink blobs with antennae hopped out of the bag, seemingly under their own power. They both had large eyes that took up half of what Kyoko could only assume were their faces. Tiny fangs peeked out of the corners of their too-wide mouths. One of them had red eyes, and the other had gold eyes. They almost looked like something out of Ami’s Tamagotchi plush collection.
The gold-eyed blob used its antennae to climb up Kamiya’s leg onto his shoulder, where it watched Kyoko and Ami warily. The red-eyed one bounced in place excitedly.
“Hello, Red-san, Blonde-san!” The red-eyed one said in a cheerful voice. “I’m Koromon. It’s nice to meet you!” Then it seemed to spy Dr. Kido, who was still standing behind the two women, and rushed in a wide circle around them to get to him.
“Oh, Joe! Joe! Hi, Joe!!! Is Gomamon here? Is he hiding? Tai said there’s a new kid with a Digiegg! Has the Digiegg hatched? Can I say hi to them? Where are they? Oh! Is that them on the bed?” It rambled at a shotgun pace. Then it lowered its voice to a stage whisper barely quieter than its previous speaking volume. “Are they sleeping?”
Dr. Kido nodded calmly. “Hello, Koromon. Yes, they’re sleeping. No, the Digiegg hasn’t hatched, and you can’t say hi yet. Gomamon isn’t here because he has fur, and furry animals aren’t allowed in the hospital aside from service animals, and,” he added as the Koromon opened his mouth, “nobody believes in digital monsters so they’ll all think he’s a seal and seals aren’t trained as service animals. Yes, we’ve checked that law repeatedly. No, he cannot be my Emotional Support Seal.”
The Koromon had opened and closed its mouth repeatedly as Dr. Kido spoke, apparently as its questions were answered before it asked them. Then it seemed to find something to say after all. “But, Joe,” it started innocently, “Gomamon is your Emotional Support Seal. You said so yourself when you graduated from medical school.”
Dr. Kido’s shoulders slumped, and he sighed. “And every day since then, I’ve regretted letting you guys get me drunk at the party.”
Ami finally found her voice and whisper-shrieked, “What. The Heck. Are Those.”
Dr. Kido said, “Those would be Digimon. Like what Aiba-san’s egg will eventually hatch into. Well, maybe not that exact species, we don’t know what’s in the egg, and anyway Koromon are In-Training level Digimon, not newly hatched Babies. But you get the point.”
Kyoko stepped protectively in front of her intern, backing her up so they weren’t directly in between the two little blobs. “Does Animal Control know you have them?” She asked warily.
Kamiya shrugged, one hand steadying the gold-eyed Koromon. “Animal Control does not and probably wouldn’t remember meeting them anyway. So, uh, has Joe mentioned the perception filter yet?”
Ami said very flatly, “The what now.”
Dr. Kido said, “I was getting to that part. I got as far as ‘Hikarigaoka has lots of electrical interference, and the bigger you are, the more you produce when you pass through the gate.’”
Kamiya nodded. “Okay! I can take it from here. So,” he gestured, strangely, to the gold-eyed Koromon sitting on his shoulder, “do either of you remember an incident a few months back, where there was a sudden power surge and a giant, black armored monster suddenly fell over onto the ground outside the Broadway-Main Street subway station?”
Those unnerving gold eyes snapped to Kamiya’s face and the blob flushed bright scarlet. “Tai! Don’t start with me!”
“What?” Kamiya protested. “Why not? You make a great starter. Tons of people saw you tripping and skinning your knees outside the train station.”
“Tai!” The gold-eyed Koromon protested. Then, it turned, fell off his shoulder, and hopped moodily back into the duffel bag. “I’m going in here and I’m not coming out. Good. Bye!”
One antenna reached up and tried to zip the bag shut behind it but failed. The other Koromon helpfully hopped over and zipped the bag shut. Then it partially unzipped it and poked its face in.
“Did I help?” The red-eyed Koromon asked.
“You will if you shut it again!” The gold one snapped.
“Okay!” The red one chirped. It carefully rezipped the bag, then started climbing Kamiya’s leg. Halfway up, Kamiya, looking like he was trying very hard not to laugh, picked it up. The red one snuggled into his hands happily and told him, “Tai, I helped.”
“You sure did, buddy,” Kamiya said. Then he looked back at Kyoko and Ami. “So, BlackWarGreymon, giant armored dinosaur at the subway station. Ring any bells?”
Kyoko finally rebooted her brain and remembered what he was talking about. “You mean that inflatable parade float balloon that. Someone inflated. At the wrong time and…wrong…place…” Her voice trailed off as she actually thought about what she was saying.
Kamiya raised an eyebrow and rocked a little on his heels. “You thought it was an inflatable parade float balloon when the scene was completely devoid of anything to indicate it was? No actual parade float paraphernalia? Or even an air pump? On the sidewalk directly in front of the staircase to the subway station?”
Kyoko’s voice was very blank as she said, “I investigated that. How the fuck did I not notice that made no sense?” She went back through every time it had come up in conversation since the incident and could not for the life of her remember having ever thought that was strange. Takumi had once joked that he wanted a similar giant balloon for his birthday, and she’d told him that she should’ve asked the float owner about where they got their equipment from. There hadn’t been any parade float owner in the first place! Nobody had ever owned up to owning the thing!
Kamiya’s voice was frustratingly sympathetic as he said, “The gate, since it’s always open, always produces some electrical interference. This is just enough to—according to Izzy, one of the other members of the Odaiba Summer Camp group—mess with the electrical impulses in your brain, which creates a kind of perception filter that makes you more inclined to hand-wave any Digimon crossover events. Of course, if you pass through the gate, it can’t help you there, and if you start channeling power to your partner, as what’s-his-name did—”
Dr. Kido interrupted him, “His name’s Aiba Takumi.”
Kamiya nodded. “Right, as Aiba-san did, then that channeling alters your ‘electrical impulse pattern,’ or whatever Izzy’s official term for it is, enough that the perception filter stops affecting you.”
Red Koromon piped up at this point. “We use the power you guys give us to digivolve into bigger and stronger forms! My next form is my Rookie form, Agumon! My brother’s Rookie form is BlackAgumon!”
Ami said very flatly, “So, basically, I’m living in a Pokémon game, except all the Pokémon are parasitic aliens who don’t want us to know they’re here.”
“Ah, no, they’re not really parasitic?” Kamiya rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “It’s a symbiotic relationship. We give them power, and they use that to protect us. And we’re partners, so there’s always the usual supportive-friend stuff going on besides that.”
Kyoko closed her eyes for a moment, digging her palm into her mouth to hide her expression as she schooled her thoughts. “I need some wasabi and fish-eye-paste coffee right about now,” she muttered. Then she reopened her eyes, and her posture straightened in a way that she knew made her seem more intimidating.
Kamiya seemed rather taken aback. “Some what coffee…?”
Ignoring him, Kyoko said, “Okay, I’m listening to all this…Digimon talk now. Start again from the beginning. How much danger is Takumi in, both in general, and from that egg specifically?”
“None, from the egg,” Kamiya said automatically. “They’re partners. The mere thought of hurting each other is abhorrent—they’re more likely to engage in self-harm than to hit one another. One of the Control Spire Four group was possessed by a malevolent entity at one point, and even as an abusive jackass, Ken still didn’t manage to physically hurt Wormmon or Veemon. Be emotionally abusive, yes, whip other Digimon, yes, but actually lash out at them? No. Even under all that corruption, he wasn’t able to bring himself to do that.”
“It’s the same for us Digimon,” Red Koromon said solemnly. “Our entire beings are structured around protecting our partners. You are our lifeforce. For you to be hurt is for us to be hurt. For you to die is for us to die. The egg, and whoever’s inside it, will never be able to hurt Aiba-san because they’re partners. The worst, most destructive rage they could muster would never do more than frighten Aiba-san, and even his fear alone would be gutting for his partner.”
The little guy—Kyoko was pretty sure based on the pronouns that it was a guy—drooped miserably. “I scared Tai once, when I dark-digivolved into SkullGreymon and went crazy. That was—even under the Dark Ring’s control, I couldn’t attack Tai. He was my partner! But, knowing that I scared him like that…that was even worse than becoming MetalGreymon while under the Dark Spire’s control.” He sniffled and the duffel bag rolled sideways, coincidentally closer to Kamiya’s feet. “I’d rather have been deleted and sent back to Primary Village than have been turned into SkullGreymon and scared Tai. Rebirth is better than that.”
Kamiya visibly softened as he looked down at his partner. “Well, buddy, I’d rather have been a bit frightened than have you suddenly be reborn without me knowing. At least when you were captured and being unwillingly digivolved, I knew you were alive and could potentially track you. If you were deleted and I didn’t know it…”
Kamiya trailed off, looking haunted. Dr. Kido circled around to his side and put a hand on his shoulder.
“The uncertainty is always the worst,” he said. “Better to have a conclusive answer of ‘they’re alive’ than to be left wondering.”
Kyoko’s gaze darted to Takumi again. He’d been asleep for six hours now, and Kyoko wasn’t sure she’d seen him twitch once. Well, maybe once, but only when someone tried to remove that egg from his grasp. If that monitor wasn’t beeping away in the background, she almost would have thought he was a corpse in his bed.
Her shoulders lowered by a centimeter as she sighed. “I can understand that. I’d much rather know that Takumi is safe and well than be left to stew in my doubts.” She paused. “He is going to wake up, right? You’ve said this ‘digivolving’ takes energy, and the Red Koromon said it’s—he’s?”
“He,” Red Koromon confirmed.
“He’s digivolved before. I can’t say that I’m following with all these names, but clearly, you’ve done this energy transfer before and haven’t passed out. And the energy transfer is what’s exhausted Takumi.” Kyoko finished without missing a beat at the interruption.
Dr. Kido nodded. “Yes, he’s definitely going to wake up. He’s expended an unusual amount of energy rebooting his partner, and I can’t give you an answer for why that happened until the egg hatches and can talk to us, but the bulk of the energy loss probably came from opening the gate. For hopefully obvious reasons, ripping a hole in reality would be the most energy-intensive part of the whole thing. Give him a few days, maybe a week or so at most, and he’ll wake up right as rain. Starving probably, but A-OK all the same.”
Ami let out a shaky, relieved laugh. “Okay. That’s a relief to hear. I guess I can’t skip out on cooking duty anymore then. I’d better start stocking up on soba noodles.”
“Speaking of food,” Kamiya interjected. “The egg will probably hatch when Aiba-san wakes up. Digimon eat a lot, which is why our partners usually live in the Digital World where they can forage for food, but the newborn won’t be ready to leave Aiba-san’s side for a while. Likely not until In-Training at the earliest, and Rookie would be better just so that they’ll have actual limbs and can carry their food.”
He dug around in his pockets for a moment, moving Red Koromon around as needed. “Oh, hang on, I had a voucher somewhere for Mountain Guardian, but I can’t seem to find it.”
The duffel bag wriggled in place again, and a muffled shout arose from it. “It’s in here!” Gold Koromon announced.
Kamiya reached down and unzipped the bag. Immediately, a pink antenna poked out with the voucher scrunched up in its grasp. Kamiya shuffled Red Koromon onto one hip, then scooped his other partner out of the bag and set Gold Koromon on the opposite hip.
“Thanks buddy,” Kamiya said.
Gold Koromon pouted up at him. “I wasn’t ready to come out yet.” It, or rather, he given the bizarrely deep voice, smacked Kamiya in the ribs with the antenna not clutching the voucher.
Kamiya didn’t take offense at the hit, just said, “You hate travelling in the bag. You’re always complaining about it being stuffy, hot, and stinking of old gym clothes.”
“It does!” Gold Koromon immediately said.
“I haven’t put any sweaty clothes in there since I graduated college thirty years ago!”
“That’s a lie! I saw you put a sweaty shirt in there just last week!”
“Actually,” Red Koromon said, “it smells like lemons and flowers in there. Rei put a satchel of lemon rind and dried honeysuckle in before we left. She said it was because she just washed the bag and didn’t want us to have to travel with stinky chemical smells.”
Both Kamiya and Gold Koromon paused, looking sheepish to have been caught out in their lies. Dr. Kido decided to explain the voucher to the obviously lost Kyoko and Ami.
“There are several different groups of Digidestined in Hikarigaoka. Ah,” Dr. Kido interrupted himself, “Digidestined is what you call someone who has a Digimon partner. We used call ourselves Chosen Children but we’re not exactly children anymore. Anyway, one of the other groups, the Control Spire Four, is led by Kanbara Daisuke. He owns the Mountain Guardian Ramen Restaurant two blocks down from the Broadway Shopping Center.”
Kyoko nodded immediately. “I know the place. My office isn’t far from it. They make great food.”
“It’s the only food you pay us in that Takumi and I will willingly eat.” Ami said cheerfully. “All offense intended, you’re a terrible cook.”
“Just for that, I’m docking your pay.” Kyoko told her.
“Well, joke’s on you, you don’t pay us in the first place!” Ami sassed back.
Dr. Kido cleared his throat and continued. “I’m glad you’re familiar with it. Are you aware that it has a standing ‘50% off if you buy twelve or more bowls’ deal?”
“Yep!” Ami said. “Makes for great party food. Everybody can eat their favorite and have seconds. Plus the portion sizes are ginormous so you can eat your fill with leftovers on two bowls alone.”
“That’s because it’s intended to cater to those with Digimon partners visiting. Trust me, Digimon can and will eat more than twelve bowls on their own.” Dr. Kido shook his head. “Don’t ask me where they put it all, though. Their metabolisms are faster than lightning.”
He stopped to clean his glasses again. As he wiped the lenses, he continued speaking. “The voucher Tai’s talking about is just for the special milk formula that Baby Digimon drink. It’s hard to get in the Human World, but Daisuke usually keeps some bulk packages in case of an emergency rebirth. You ladies can’t exactly show him the egg to prove you need it, so the voucher will do that for you.”
“That’s…very kind of you,” Kyoko said, a bit taken aback by the origin of the infamous 50% off deal.
Dr. Kido shrugged. “It’s the least we can do. For better or worse, Aiba-san is part of the Digidestined community now, and just because he’s starting off on a painful note doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make his transition to the community easy.”
“Besides,” Kamiya said, “forty years of experience says that the hardest part is usually keeping your partner fed, not hiding them. For some reason, even outside Hikarigaoka, people aren’t willing to accept ‘monsters from another world’ as an answer to the weirdness.” He grins. “Don’t believe me? Try searching for ‘Tokyo Tidal Wave knight and bug movie conspiracy.’ The whole world saw my partner Omnimon—that’s Mr. red-eyed Koromon here’s fully evolved form—fighting off first Diaboromon and then Armageddemon, and yet, within forty-eight hours, every single person over the age of twenty on Earth was convinced it was all just a publicity stunt.”
He shifted his weight suddenly as Gold Koromon reached out to hand the voucher to Kyoko. “But! You had some other questions about Digimon. Fire away.”)
Silence dominated the World Tree’s Audience Chamber. The Royal Knights knelt before the crystalline form of Yggdrasil, who hovered in contemplation. It had been several minutes since they finished their reports when Yggdrasil finally spoke.
In a quiet voice devoid of any intonation, Yggdrasil said, “So, yet another Knight betrays me.”
Gankoomon’s head jerked up in shock and several other Knights made small, surprised gestures of their own. Examon’s tail flicked Alphamon’s cape aside as the leader of the Royal Knights brought the hand not propped on his knee up to cover his mouth. His startled squeak was thankfully stifled in time.
“Your Majesty?” Gankoomon said uncertainly.
Yggdrasil turned to him, drawing a little closer as he did so. “I had believed that a loyal Knight raised by my loyal servants would prove to be more faithful than Omnimon, but it seems I was mistaken.”
Gankoomon’s fists clenched. “I—there must be some misunderstanding. The effect of the aura on Digimon was purely theoretical. Mere speculation. All that Jesmon did was be deleted. The human on the other side of the gate was the one who stole—”
Yggdrasil did not allow him to finish. “The data is clear. If a human’s aura is capable of reaching out and connecting to a Digimon, there must be a preexisting connection. The aura alone cannot forge that path. Therefore, for Jesmon to be aided by a human, he must have already knowingly broken his oaths to me and pledged himself to another.”
“Jesmon wouldn’t—” Gankoomon started to say, but was cut off by Crusadermon wrapping a ribbon around his mouth.
At Alphamon’s side, Examon hurried to draw Yggdrasil’s attention before their King’s wrath fell upon the grieving father.
“There is data on the auras?” Examon said. “Your Majesty, if I may be so bold, may I see it? Perhaps there is a way to predict what and how the aura works.”
Yggdrasil was silent for a long moment. The chamber hummed in that eerie way it did whenever he ran complex calculations. At last, their King deigned to explain to them. “The aura is only a visual representation of the power flowing from the human to the Digimon. The power is the same as that used by all Digimon digivolution. It only appears colored because the transfer from one being to another makes it visible. If it lacked color, it would not be visible. It is not visible in standardized forms of digivolution, where the energy used is solely that of the evolving Digimon, because the energy is stored internally and does not need to be externalized.”
None of the Knights dared interrupt, but Alphamon couldn’t help but wonder how this explained the healing and the portal opening if all it was, was an energy transfer as His Majesty seemed to be suggesting.
Sure enough, Yggdrasil continued to say, “There are no other functions to the aura beyond transferring power from the human to its servant Digimon. The ability to transfer power from one to the other is an ability held solely by the human species.”
As His Majesty seemed to be done explaining, Alphamon dared to ask, “And the gate, sir? The description suggested that it was being held open by the aura.”
Yggdrasil turned to Alphamon, looming closer. “The humans are already known to possess technology capable of opening gates at their leisure. Jesmon’s newest liege lord used its own portal-maker to transport its servant to it and closed the gate once it had what it wanted.”
Gankoomon managed to pry Crusadermon’s ribbon from his mouth and immediately protested that description of his son. “Jesmon condemned the humans’ actions as much as any Knight did. He wouldn’t have sworn allegiance to a human in light of their crimes!”
Yggdrasil transferred his attention to Gankoomon once more. “Yet has not Jesmon expressed undue concern and pity for the human prisoners? Has he not been reprimanded on multiple occasions for showing leniency upon the invaders? Gankoomon, I understand that your relationship with Jesmon incites you to defend him, but the results are conclusive. Jesmon was rescued from permanent deletion perpetrated by what you would call ‘friendly fire,’ and this rescue was performed by an unidentified human’s aura following a preexisting connection from its origin to Jesmon. Ergo, Jesmon has given fealty to a human.”
Surprisingly, it was shy Magnamon who spoke up next. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I fail to understand why a human, whose species detest us, would go out of their way to recruit and save Jesmon.”
He made to speak more, but then Yggdrasil turned to him and his voice died in his throat. UlforceVeedramon finished his sentence for him. “If the aura only provides energy for digivolution, then devising a way for it to reconstruct Jesmon’s egg seems to be a bizarre use of time, energy, and effort for someone who wants only our destruction.”
Alphamon didn’t let Yggdrasil’s attention linger too long on the Veemon brothers. He said, “Kentaurosmon’s reports indicate that some humans bear us no ill will and are ignorant to the threat of the Gizumon invasions. They also indicate that the human populace at large doesn’t even know that Digimon and the Digital World exist. Is it not possible that the human who rescued Jesmon is one of those who mean us no harm?”
Yggdrasil stared at them silently for a long time. After several minutes of this, some of the Knights began to fidget uncomfortably. Examon and Dynasmon, two of less-humanoid Knights, braced themselves against the ground to ease the pressure on knees that were not supposed to bend that way. Magnamon’s free claw, from the hand not propped on his knee, started scratching at his ankle boot nervously. UlforceVeedramon immediately reached over and cuffed him lightly with a wing, and the screechy sound of claws on metal stopped.
At last, Yggdrasil spoke. There was no more intonation to his voice than there was before, but a strange sense of finality filled the words anyway. “Those variables have been taken into account in the assessment of the threat posed by the humans. I hereby decree: Jesmon is stripped of his title as Royal Knight. Henceforth, he will be considered a traitor and will be treated as such. You are dismissed.”
Cowed, the Knights stood and filed out of the room. Alphamon closed his eyes briefly, hand covering his mouth. There had been no buzz of calculations before Yggdrasil made that decree. He had already made up his mind and made only the barest attempts to conceal that fact.
Gankoomon got as far as the first intersection before he stopped and slammed his fist into the wall. Crusadermon rested a hand on his shoulder briefly.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.” She said gently.
Dynasmon huffed, then grabbed her by the waist and physically hauled her away from Gankoomon. “Have some tact, Crusadermon. That’s not what a grieving parent wants to hear.”
“What do you expect us to say, then?” Duftmon asked. “You heard His Majesty. There is nothing to be done. Jesmon is no longer a Royal Knight.”
Gallantmon ignored him. “If it’s any consolation, Jesmon is at least still alive. If the humans managed to deactivate his rebirth seal, then he should be reborn.”
“Yes, reborn as an enemy!” Duftmon exclaimed.
“Oh, hush!” Gallantmon snapped at him. “If he’s reborn as an enemy, he should be able to regenerate. We may need to batter him a bit first, but I doubt the—the loyalty infection would survive a rebirth.”
“And his memory of me?” Gankoomon asked quietly. “Would that survive two rebirths? Would rebirth guarantee that Jesmon is free of whatever twisting the humans do to a young, impressionable child? Would that erase His Majesty’s decision to abandon Jesmon?”
Something ached in Alphamon’s core to see Gankoomon like this. A strange certainty filled him—it would not do to let Gankoomon go without hope. Without assurance that Jesmon was okay. “Gankoomon, I’m sure that whatever human Jesmon is with is kind, and that he’s in no danger.”
“You don’t know that!” Gankoomon snarled. “Not for sure!”
Alphamon didn’t let the sudden outburst phase him. “I can only tell you what my gut instinct says, and it says that wherever Jesmon is, he’s safe. It’s true, I have no basis for this certainty, but why not hope for the best? Until we find his egg, we can only drive ourselves insane with worry.”
Craniamon tilted his head in surprise. “Optimism is unlike you, Alphamon. But I agree. We should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.” He paused, then added awkwardly, “Gallantmon has a point—I doubt whatever they do to Jesmon will last beyond a rebirth. And you can raise him again, then.”
Magnamon shuffled his feet, hands worrying again at his belly pouch. UlforceVeedramon batted them away without looking, and Magnamon took that as his cue to blurt out, “We’ll find him soon, and get him back! So, do—don’t worry…!”
His voice trailed off as he inched closer to UlforceVeedramon, who wrapped a wing around him.
Gankoomon took a deep breath. Let it out. Left. The others watched him go. Alphamon pressed the heel of his hand to his mouth again, watching worriedly.
Finally, Duftmon said, “You should not have given him false hope. Nothing has ever indicated that Digimon can recover from what humans do to them.” He crossed his arms. “For that matter, nothing ever suggested that they did not capture Jesmon’s egg simply to have an experiment on whom to test a newer Gizumon. Jesmon may not be alive.”
Magnamon flinched and UlforceVeedramon folded his wing a little tighter around his younger brother. Examon grimaced, tail lashing against the ground. Ambrosius fell with a clatter as his tail released it. Alphamon turned sharply to Duftmon.
“You’re wrong, Duftmon. It’s better to give him some hope, no matter how frail. Otherwise…” Alphamon trailed off, unable to verbalize the nebulous fear that plagued him at the thought of not knowing whether a loved one was alive or deleted.
“You’re concerned what he might do in his grief,” Examon said.
Alphamon nodded, because that seemed as good an explanation as any. “Grief can motivate people to do all the wrong things if they’re not careful to watch themselves. With His Majesty’s decree being what it is, I’m concerned that he might take his frustration out by attacking the humans with less care and restraint than he might show normally.”
Dynasmon frowned. “Wouldn’t the Sistermon stop him? They’re usually there the to mitigate his rages, as few and far between as those are.” He paused, reviewing his words in his head, and then winced.
Crusadermon tipped her head up to look at him. Neither seemed to realize how close they were, though everyone else was pretending not to notice. “Did any of the Sistermon look like they were in any shape to be stopping him? Ciel, perhaps, but she’s got her hands full with her sisters, and I’d wager she hasn’t dealt with her grief yet either. Both she and Gankoomon tend to put their feelings off until the immediate emergency is over.”
“Yes, yes, I figured that out myself as soon as I said it,” Dynasmon said crankily.
Craniamon murmured, “I’ve never seen Noir cry before. She’s always been the loud, outgoing, aggressive Sistermon. Right now, she’s…unnervingly subdued. Despondent. And Blanc seemed almost catatonic. I think she was only moving around because Ciel was steering her.”
Examon sighed. He stooped to pick up Ambrosius, though Alphamon got to it faster and handed it off. Examon nodded once in thanks. His tail, on the other hand, whipped the ground in frustration.
“I’ll talk to them in a bit,” Examon said. “See if they have any injuries or need a friendly shoulder to cry on.”
Alphamon immediately said, “If there’s anything I can do—”
Examon gave him a grateful smile, and his tail stopped thumping against the ground to wind gently along Alphamon’s ankle. “If I need anything, you know you’ll be the first person I call. But you’re not a trained medic, and I am.”
“You’re not a trained grief counselor either,” Alphamon said quietly.
“Neither are you.”
UlforceVeedramon glanced down at his younger brother, who was hunched miserably in on himself and had been since Duftmon had suggested that Jesmon was permanently deleted after all. Then he turned to Alphamon.
“Do you truly think that Jesmon is alive and safe in the Human World?” He asked.
Alphamon nodded firmly. “Yes. As I said before, I have no basis for my certainty, but I am certain that Jesmon is alive and well. Whoever he’s with, whoever it is that called him to the Human World…I’m sure that they are a kind individual who doesn’t wish any ill upon him or upon the Digital World.”
UlforceVeedramon smiled. “Well, you certainly sound sure of that. I’ll take your optimism while it lasts.” He looked again at Magnamon, who seemed relieved to hear Alphamon speaking with such surety, as though he was only stating facts. Magnamon seemed to feel his elder brother’s gaze on him, because he looked up curiously. UlforceVeedramon hugged him in response.
Gallantmon stepped away from the group and cleared his throat. “I’ll update Kentaurosmon and have him look out for Jesmon’s egg. And, since he’s not here,” Gallantmon turned an amused look at Dynasmon and Crusadermon, who had been standing very close together since the conversation started. “I’ll offer a reminder in his stead. Dynasmon, I’m sure you can remove your arm from Crusadermon’s waist now.”
Dynasmon and Crusadermon both abruptly realized that his arm had been around her waist for some time, and spring apart with twin yelps. The remaining Knights laughed, before dispersing.
Notes:
Credit to hallowed_nebulae and their friend-who's-name-I've-forgotten for the Veemon line are marsupials headcanon! It lives rent free in my head right now. Also, I hope you love Magnamon as much as I do. He's baby and UlforceVeedramon will fight anyone who disagrees.
Also, if you're wondering why Dynasmon lowering his head at the beginning was "aggressive posture" for him, it's because he looks like a goat when he opens his mouth, so he will body language like a goat. And goats headbutt things when they're mad or feeling aggressive. Fun facts: Dynasmon's goats traits do make him an extreme omnivore. He's banned from cooking for others on the grounds that anybody else would get food poisoning. Alphamon is the only one who will try some of the food, and only after he's been told the full ingredient list. Alphamon is also banned from cooking for others on the grounds that his idea of "nice flavor/texture combo" does not agree with anyone other than Dynasmon. Since I already decided that Alphamon's not going to be the biggest fan of Kyoko's concoctions--there's nothing wrong with the taste, as far as Alphamon's concerned, it's just that his body is armored and her stuff tends to be very gritty and grainy and that wears at the plating in his jaw--they have a different shared character tic: hiding their mouth with the palm of their hand. They both use the left hand, but where Kyoko points her fingers to her right, Alphamon twists his wrist to point his fingers the left. And Magnamon's pouch-fur-tugging nervous tic is based off of a family member's tendency to scratch until she bleeds. We're always reminding her to stop.
I hope you enjoyed! Have a wonderful day!
hallowed_nebulae on Chapter 1 Sun 25 Jul 2021 01:34PM UTC
Last Edited Sun 25 Jul 2021 01:35PM UTC
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shefrommo on Chapter 1 Sun 25 Jul 2021 04:39PM UTC
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shefrommo on Chapter 1 Sun 25 Jul 2021 05:06PM UTC
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hallowed_nebulae on Chapter 1 Sun 25 Jul 2021 05:58PM UTC
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shefrommo on Chapter 1 Sun 25 Jul 2021 09:47PM UTC
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hallowed_nebulae on Chapter 1 Sun 25 Jul 2021 10:26PM UTC
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shefrommo on Chapter 1 Sun 25 Jul 2021 10:59PM UTC
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hallowed_nebulae on Chapter 1 Sun 25 Jul 2021 11:48PM UTC
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shefrommo on Chapter 1 Mon 26 Jul 2021 12:01AM UTC
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shefrommo on Chapter 1 Mon 26 Jul 2021 12:20AM UTC
Last Edited Mon 26 Jul 2021 12:22AM UTC
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hallowed_nebulae on Chapter 1 Mon 26 Jul 2021 12:38AM UTC
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hallowed_nebulae on Chapter 2 Thu 29 Jul 2021 06:55AM UTC
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shefrommo on Chapter 2 Thu 29 Jul 2021 03:36PM UTC
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shefrommo on Chapter 2 Thu 29 Jul 2021 06:24PM UTC
Last Edited Thu 29 Jul 2021 06:32PM UTC
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hallowed_nebulae on Chapter 2 Thu 29 Jul 2021 06:36PM UTC
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shefrommo (Guest) on Chapter 2 Fri 30 Jul 2021 02:54AM UTC
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hallowed_nebulae on Chapter 2 Fri 30 Jul 2021 03:31AM UTC
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hallowed_nebulae on Chapter 2 Sun 22 Aug 2021 04:55AM UTC
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Animus_Melodiam on Chapter 2 Sun 03 Oct 2021 02:50AM UTC
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RandomReader (Guest) on Chapter 2 Thu 10 Mar 2022 11:52PM UTC
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shefrommo (Guest) on Chapter 2 Fri 11 Mar 2022 04:16PM UTC
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Storyreader21 on Chapter 2 Fri 22 Jul 2022 04:16AM UTC
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