EPISODE 15 - A NEW OBSESSION
“No.”
“What? But -”
“I said no.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“Alex, you are injured. You can’t put yourself in danger while you’re still recovering.”
Alex huffed and folded his arms across his chest, glaring down at Castor. “I just want to help you.”
Castor raised an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t want you to get hurt again. You need to keep yourself safe.”
Alex knew Castor was just worried about him, but it was so annoying. He sighed, quietly enough that Castor wouldn’t notice.
Couldn’t he care about me a little less?
Alex was fine! Completely fine! The wound on his chest didn’t hurt quite as badly anymore! Sure, it still stung a little when he moved, but not as much as it once had. He was healing pretty well, if he said so himself. At the very least he was no longer in danger of dying from blood loss.
And even if he wasn’t feeling okay, it’s not like he’d tell anyone that. He couldn’t hold the group back. They couldn’t afford to stop for any longer, because the longer they sat still, the more opportunities for -
“It’s not that bad, though,” Alex started, but Castor shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter what you think, the fact of the matter is that you need to stay safe. Which means not provoking potentially dangerous Digimon.”
“I’m not provoking them,” Alex mumbled, rubbing his arm and looking off to the side. “Just making sure you don’t get hurt. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry, Alex,” Castor said gently, tugging on the hood of his cloak. “I know you just want to help. But the best thing you can do in these situations is make sure that you don’t get hurt.” He cracked a small smile. “That’s the best way you can help.”
It made sense, really. It had been a rough couple of days.
The week had started out fine - for a given definition of fine, considering it included Alex’s unfortunate encounter with the Aegiochusmon (which he did admit was entirely his own fault). He’d woken up in a hospital with a Digimon he’d never met before, his friends nowhere to be seen.
He’d thought he was dead.
“You may as well be,” Lilamon had said. “You’re in pretty rough condition. You’ll be fine, but it’ll take a while for you to recover fully. Don’t strain yourself too hard.”
And he hadn’t.
Not like he’d had a say in the matter. If it had been up to him, they would have left right away, immediately heading off once again.
But Piximon had been generous enough to let the group stay in the town, Hallowed Streets, and they’d accepted his offer readily. With everything that had happened over the past few days, it would be a nice change of pace to be able to relax for a while. They had a lot to think about after everything they’d learned recently, after all, and it would be good to stay put for a bit while Alex recovered and they figured out where they were headed next.
File Island.
They’d made a plan together the night after they’d talked to Piximon. Damien had purchased a map of the entire Digital World from one of the shops in the town and had walked into the dining room of the inn where they were eating dinner, spreading it out across the tables they’d pushed together.
“You’re coming with us?” Alex had asked before Damien could even begin, pressing a hand against his wound as he spoke. Even the smallest motions such as moving his arms sent a course of pain through his chest, and he had to stop to take a few breaths whenever he moved. “I thought this was where you were going to stop. After you led us here to Central Forest.”
Damien had given him a very unamused look. “If you want to get to File Island without a guide, be my guest.”
Moxie had frowned at this, placing a hand on her hip, but she said nothing, and Alex didn’t see fit to press her. He didn’t press Damien, either, despite how badly he wanted to. Surely it can’t be that simple, a thought tugged at his mind.
But he left it at that.
“The easiest way to get there,” Damien continued, pointing at a spot on the map - Alex leaned forward to get a better look and saw that it was labeled “Central Forest” - “would be to head directly north for a few days.” He dragged his finger up a few inches, stopping at another blob labeled “Starwoods”.
“That’s not north,” Ryan said, staring dead down at the map. Indeed, Damien had drawn a line that was not quite as straight as it could have been, instead heading off to the left slightly.
“It’s close enough,” Damien snapped back, his finger unmoving from where it rested. “If we go northwest, we’ll hit the coast sooner than if we headed straight north.”
Azure folded their hands below their chin. “And why do we want to get to the coast?”
“Less Digimon, less resistance.” Damien gave the paper a single tap before trailing his finger further northwest for a few seconds, through yet another forest (“Under Forest”), before he veered sharply to the left - directly west. “It’ll be easier to reach the north coast if we’re actually traveling on the coast.”
“It’s still going to be a couple days before we get there,” Bumble added, hovering midair next to Damien. “We need to get through the Starwoods and Under Forest, but it should be quick enough, if we can make good time.”
“Why wouldn’t we just head straight west, then?” Ren chimed in. “If we want to get to the coast as soon as possible, wouldn’t that be quicker?”
“Ah, but see,” Damien said, almost before she’d even finished talking, “then we’d have to go through the Drylands.”
“Oh, of course,” Alex said, as if he had any idea what Damien was talking about. “Everyone knows not to, uh. Go through the Drylands.”
“You get it,” Damien said, nodding at him, though Alex could tell he was being sarcastic. Damien hovered his finger above a large area off to the west of Central Forest. “There’s very few sources of food and water in the Drylands, so it wouldn’t be the best place to go for a trip, especially with this many of us.”
“Starwoods is lovely this time of year anyways,” Pop said after a brief pause. “Or so I’ve heard.”
“I, for one, trust you enough to not get us lost,” Azure said, looking at Damien.
He rolled his eyes. “Once we get to the coast, it should be smooth sailing from there on out. Not in the literal sense, of course. At least not yet.”
“Not yet?” Flip echoed, tilting his head. “Implying that we will sail at some point?”
“How else are we going to cross the miles of ocean in between Server and File Island?” Damien said, folding his arms.
Alex frowned, resting his chin in his hand. “Do Digimon even have boats?”
Bumble gave him a pointed look. “How else did we cross the miles of ocean in between File Island and Server?”
The similarities between him and his partner were astonishing.
“Northern Pier is a town along the north coast,” Pop said, fidgeting slightly where she rested on Moxie’s shoulder. “They offer ferry rides to and from File Island. That’s the service we used when we came here.”
“So that’s our route?” Alex mumbled. “Northwest through Starwoods and Under Forest, west to the coast, then follow the coast till we get to Northern Pier?”
Moxie nodded. “It’s the simplest solution. Hopefully we won’t run into any…” She trailed off, leaving the rest of her sentence unsaid, but Alex knew what she meant.
“Great,” Damien said, leaning forward to grab the map off the table. He folded it back up as neatly as possible and stuck it into his pocket. “Glad we got this figured out.”
And that was that.
They‘d stayed in Hallowed Streets for about three more days, leaving early in the morning on the fourth, which happened to be the first day Alex was able to move without feeling like he’d been stabbed. None of them had wanted to leave before Alex felt up to his usual self again, and Castor had made it quite clear that if Alex lied about feeling better just so they could, he would “deeply regret it”.
Alex did not know what Castor meant by that, but wasn’t in the mood to find out.
So they’d rested for as long as they could, making sure to stock up from the various shops around the town - food, water, blankets, and a few more bags to hold their extra supplies (which Alex had offered to carry at first, before he was quickly shot down). Ryan had even managed to acquire a close approximation of a first aid kit - with Digimon not being able to bleed, proper medical supplies were difficult to find, but what he had managed to buy was a huge improvement from what they had previously.
It was better than nothing, at least.
In Hallowed Streets, having nowhere to go and nothing to do and no attacking monsters to run from, Alex had almost felt like maybe, just maybe, being stuck in this world with no way home wasn’t quite so bad.
But all good things must come to an end, which became evident to them shortly after they arrived in Starwoods, one day after they’d left the city behind.
Everything had been fine at first - the forest was open and spacious, the trees reaching high above their heads and very little foliage decorating the ground. They’d been having a lovely time during the day on their walks and during the night at camp - the forest was, apparently, aptly named for the fact that its night sky views were like no other, and the first night there, they were able to verify that fact on their own.
Starwoods was not, thankfully, quite as restrictive as Host Forest or Plugin Forest had been - there was room to breathe, and during the day the sunlight broke down through the tree branches to leave small patches of light upon the ground. The grass was soft enough for it to be comfortable to sleep on, giving them all a break from scrambling to find leaves to use as makeshift bedding. At night, the trees glittered, as if constellations were etched into their bark and woven into their leaves.
It was almost peaceful, really.
So the issue wasn’t a matter of scenery, but rather a matter of… well, being attacked.
It wasn’t that they hadn’t been expecting it; attacks from Digimon had become commonplace for them, no matter where they went, and they hadn’t imagined Starwoods to be any different. Despite its apparent popularity among vacationers, it was bound to be just as bad as everywhere else they’d been since coming to this world.
But they hadn’t thought it would have been worse than anywhere else.
It was nothing they couldn’t handle - they were only up against champion levels, thankfully, and their partners seemed to be getting a better handle on evolving to their own champion stages. Fights ended quickly, with their opponents either being chased off or defeated if they turned out to be infected.
(Should they even keep calling it that, they wondered, now that they suspected something else was at play. They didn’t ponder over it too much, but the question still hung in the air whenever one of them said the word.)
No, the problem lay instead in the fact that the attacks were relentless.
It was incessant. From the moment they’d stepped foot in the forest, it was like they had slapped giant targets on their backs, inviting any neighboring Digimon to chase them down at every twist and turn. No matter how hard they fought back or how far they ran away, the attacking Digimon never stayed away for long. It wasn’t the same one or two Digimon every time; it wasn’t that they were being hunted by a particularly vengeful Digimon. Their attackers were different every time.
Which almost made things worse, really.
Where were these Digimon coming from? Why did they always seem to go straight for the group? Why were ninety percent of them infected?
Alex could count on one hand the amount of Digimon they’d fought over the past few days who hadn’t been infected, but to count the amount they’d fought in total, he’d need at least three or four extra arms.
It was getting a bit worrying, to be honest.
And, again, the fights weren’t difficult. Sure, they’d had their fair share of narrow victories, even having to run away from one singular battle in which they were up against not one, not two, not three, but eight infected Digimon, but other than those instances, it was just like any other day.
On top of that, the Digimon were steadily growing more and more used to their champion forms and more and more used to fighting. It only took a minute or two, now, for them to be able to evolve, and it was no longer such a struggle to be able to fend off multiple enemies at once.
Bumble and Pop had not been able to reach their ultimate stages again, ever since the Aegiochusmon fight. But it was fine - for now. They weren’t up against any ultimate level enemies - for now.
Alex wondered how long that would last.
Constantly having to fight every battle and make sure their partners weren’t in any danger… it was a lot for the Digimon to bear, Alex was sure. It would be a lot for anyone to have to bear.
And that was why Alex was, currently, in an argument with Castor about why he should be allowed to help during fights.
He knew he couldn’t really do anything. No evolutions, no special attacks, very fragile body that could bleed and feel pain and die.
But what else was he supposed to do? Sit back and do nothing as the Digimon fought tooth and nail to ensure the humans’ safety?
Not on his watch. Not if he had anything to do about it.
“I can’t let you do everything on your own,” Alex said to Castor. He pressed a hand to his neck, his shoulders hiking up to his ears. “You just need to worry about yourself and I’ll worry about myself.”
Castor gave him a dead stare. “No,” he said, exhaustion edging his tone. “No, that’s not how this works. We are partners. We watch out for each other.”
“Then why aren’t you letting me watch out for you?” Alex snapped.
Castor sat back, his gaze sweeping across Alex. Alex did not flinch, though an inkling of regret was forming in the bottom of his stomach.
It was just…
Castor had taken the brunt of a lot of attacks recently - even more so than usual. And that was what Alex was worried about.
No, not worried, he told himself firmly. I am not worried about anything. I am upset. Angry. Enraged, even.
He didn’t want to leave him to do everything on his own. If Castor was going to fight, then Alex would support him however he could. Even if it was just moral support, it was better than nothing.
“I don’t need moral support,” Castor had told him when Alex had first brought it up, a few days ago. “I need you to be safe.”
So, then, maybe he didn’t need moral support. That was fine. Alex could help him in other ways.
“This conversation isn’t going anywhere,” he said, letting loose a sigh as he slumped forward.
Castor’s red gaze was unwavering. “Which is entirely your fault for not listening to me.”
“Oh,” Alex said, straightening back up, “oh, this is my fault for not listening to you. Okay. I see. So you’re in charge of me, then? Anything you say I should do, I do?”
“Alex!” Castor snapped, jumping to his feet and pinning his ears back. “I’m trying to look out for you!”
“And I’m trying to look out for you!” Alex retorted.
“I’m not going to keep arguing with you about this,” Castor said quietly, at the same time as Alex felt a tap on his shoulder from behind.
He flinched slightly and turned around to see Moxie, with Pop perched on her shoulder. Behind her, the rest of the group was starting to stand up from where they’d stopped to take a break - which had started this whole thing with Castor.
“They’re going to come back,” Moxie cut into his thoughts. She didn’t specify who “they” were, but it was obvious from the look on her face who she was talking about. More Digimon.
Alex sighed, rubbing his hand along his face. Pop tilted her head curiously, but said nothing.
“We’re in the middle of an important discussion here,” he said, crossing his arms across his chest, and he winced slightly as he brushed against his wound. Moxie noticed this and raised an eyebrow at him.
“You can discuss on the road,” she said, turning back around to head back over to the group. “Unless you want to stay behind and die.”
Alex swallowed, clenching his jaw. She was right; they were just wasting time by standing around and doing nothing. No matter how important he thought his debate with Castor was, their main goal should be to keep moving no matter what.
A quick glance over at Castor revealed his partner to be sitting straight up, his tail and cape tucked neatly around his paws. Castor blinked once, tipping his head to the side slightly, before he headed towards the group as well.
Alex followed him a few moments later, keeping a reasonable distance from him, though not far enough behind where anyone else would be able to tell they had been fighting.
…Although maybe that was too much to ask for; as Alex reunited with the others, Ezra was the first to come up to him, his brows pinched together and a slight frown on his lips, an unspoken question hanging in the air. Alex closed his eyes and waved him away, turning the opposite direction slightly, and Ezra left it at that, though Alex could tell he was just going to be asked about it again later.
That was fine; maybe after a while he’d be willing to talk to him about it. That was a healthy thing to do, right? Talk to others about how you were feeling?
And Ezra would be more than willing to listen, he thought to himself, raising a hand to his face. He always is.
But not right now. Not while it was still so fresh, while he was still figuring out how to proceed with the whole question of “what can I do to help that doesn’t involve me injuring myself further”. A tricky thing, really. What was there he could do?
If Castor didn’t need moral support, and if he also didn’t want Alex to put himself in harm’s way, what else was there?
Does he just want me to sit back and watch everything play out in front of me? Because that’s not going to work. That’s not how I do things.
He wasn’t just going to stand by and do nothing while the Digimon put their lives on the line for the sake of the humans.
This wasn’t the first time Alex had gotten frustrated over not being able to fight. But it was the first time he realized he could do something else, something to help them - he didn’t know exactly what, yet, but he could at least try, even if Castor wouldn’t be happy about it.
Sucks for him, he thought, a little bitterly. He can’t stop me from wanting to help him out. He has to realize he can’t do everything alone.
“We’re leaving.”
A gentle voice shook him out of his absentmindedness, and he blinked a couple times as if his thoughts were obstructing his vision. Down at his feet, Castor, the one who had spoken, stared up at him.
Alex met his eyes for a brief second before looking up ahead of him, where the current rear of the group - Azure and Ko - were heading off further into the woods. Alex nodded once and set off after them, Castor following behind him.
It was weird being at the back of the line, Alex realized as they fell into step. Ever since they’d picked up Moxie and Damien and their partners, they’d been the ones leading the group. It made sense, of course - Castor didn’t know anything past Mainframe City, whereas Pop and Bumble seemed to have the whole continent memorized and thus were more suited for the job. But it was still… a new experience, one which he hadn’t fully gotten used to yet.
It was just… well, Castor had been their guide for so long, leading them from one place to the other without fail, that Alex had gotten used to looking to him for directions.
With Pop and Bumble and their partners now, though, and with Castor himself not knowing anything about where they were headed, neither of them were any use.
Not in general, of course. They were still important! Still necessary to the group! Just not in the traveling department.
And that was fine. They didn’t have to be useful in every aspect. That was why they were a group, yeah? So they could help each other out in different areas?
But if Cas wasn’t going to let Alex help him -
He shook his head out, sighing quietly. It always went back around to that, didn’t it.
Maybe he was being stubborn. Who cared! Not him.
…He shot another subtle look over at Castor, hood pulled up and face unreadable. Biting back a sigh, Alex let his own head fall slightly, staring down at the ground as they trekked on.
I’ll give him time, he thought solemnly. I’m sure eventually he’ll see my side of things.
Just gotta wait it out.
It didn’t take long for them to be attacked again.
“
“Alex, get out of the way!”
A claw planted itself onto Alex’s chest and he was sent flying backward out of the way of their enemy of the day, its glowing pinprick claws just narrowly missing him.
He landed on the ground with a hiss, his chest suddenly shot through with pain. Choking out a gasp, he lifted one of his hands to place gently over his stomach, the simple gesture still enough to make him wince. He raised the opposite arm to shield his eyes, blinking viciously over at the Digimon to try to clear his sight.
The Digimon, confused at having its prey slip out of its hands, whipped its head around violently for a few seconds before locking onto Castor - the one who had shoved Alex - and baring its teeth at him, its pitch white eyes glinting in the now-thinning rays of sunlight.
It seemed to be some sort of… hedgehog? Porcupine? Alex had never really learnt the difference between them, and supposedly neither had the Digital World, because it didn’t really look like one or the either in particular.
It was bipedal, for starters, with gray and white fur and a bushy yellow mane of quills. Spikes adorned its shoulders, elbows, and feet, with one on its nose to match. White bandages encircled its paws, long reddish-pink claws poking out from between.
And, of course, the white eyes - which was, unfortunately, the most familiar thing about the entire creature.
Castor caught Alex’s eye for a brief second and nodded, red light surrounding and enveloping him as Alex felt his phone transform in his pocket. The shifting sensation was still a bit alien to him, but he was getting more used to it as the days went on.
The light cleared and the digivice settled down, leaving Castor in his champion form, suddenly much larger than his opponent - but it didn’t seem to deter it one bit.
Oh, Alex realized, reaching a hand up to smack himself in the face before digging around in his pocket for his digivice, whipping it out entirely unceremoniously.
“How does this work again,” he mumbled to himself, cycling through the menu until he found the analyzation option.
An upside to their current situation was that their digivices were now brimming with information on all kinds of Digimon. Alex had never known that Digimon could really just be anything - one day they would be assaulted by a green rabbit wearing jeans and guns on its arms, the next they were fending off a rusty cage with arms and a single eyeball, and the next they were up against a winged cat marked in checkerboard and reminiscent of an airplane, of all things. It was amazing, really, that Digimon could be so different from each other.
But it also really sucked that they were finding this all out just because they were being targeted by increasingly violent monsters.
“Filmon,” his phone - digivice - read out, its signature voice smooth as ever. “Champion level beast Digimon. With many large spikes sprouting out of its body, it has sharp red claws that can slice anything, and yellow quills that inject energy into whatever it pierces.”
“Slice anything, huh,” he said, pocketing his digivice once its spiel was over. His eyes narrowed as they locked onto Castor, still trying to fend off the Filmon, his head lowered and back arched.
Or, rather, one of the Filmon - there were about five of them, the rest being dealt with by the others in the group, spread out over about a half-mile radius. They’d been ambushed quite suddenly by the pack, splitting up almost immediately to deal with them more efficiently.
They weren’t the most powerful enemies they’d faced, and certainly not the most at once, which was extremely fortunate for them, all things considered. There wasn’t anything unusual about the entire situation, to be honest - multiple Digimon were common, infected Digimon were common, multiple infected Digimon were common, but…
It was getting annoying at this point.
“
Filmon ducked out of the way, growling low in its throat as it reached a claw out to rake along Castor’s side. He shrugged it off, skidding to a stop as his attack ended, whirling around to face Filmon again.
“Alex,” he said, his voice low, not looking back at him. “Do not try to argue with me. Go find the others.”
Alex squeezed his eyes closed, letting loose a soft sigh so as not to draw Filmon’s attention toward him. This again?
“You’re injured,” Castor continued, his tail lashing back and forth. Filmon raised a claw, but did not move towards Castor, instead stepping to the side slightly. Castor mirrored its movements, the two beginning to circle around each other.
“I am not,” Alex started, lurching forward slightly as he tried to stand back up. One of his hands instinctively shot to his chest as he felt the pain coming back, but something felt different this time. Puzzled, he pulled his hand away, looking down at the approximate location of his wound -
Oh, that was blood.
A wave of dizziness crashed into Alex, sending his head spinning and him falling to the ground again. His vision went black and his breath hitched as he reached a hand out to slam into the ground, trying to find some sense of direction as he willed his eyesight back into existence.
It worked, but he wished it hadn’t, because the first thing he saw was - well, the hand he’d grabbed the grass with had been the bloodied hand, and it had slipped around a bit while he’d been half-conscious, so -
Filmon’s head snapped towards him, its head tilted slightly, and Castor - Alex could barely see him from the corner of his eye - was immediately barreling into it, sending it tumbling over backward as he followed up with a Fifth Cross.
“Alex!” Castor barked, whipping his head around to fix him with a hard stare, a semblance of worry dancing in his gaze. “Please, get somewhere safe! You’re already hurt!”
Alex opened his mouth to say something, his tongue dry, but the words died in his throat as Filmon’s claws began to glow red.
“Castor -”
“
Castor jumped back, trying to get out of the way of Filmon’s attack, but he misjudged the range of its attack, and several of its whirling slashes made contact with him. He gritted his teeth and held his position, waiting till its attack was over to send it toppling backward.
“Get away,” Castor said, this time keeping his eyes fixed on Filmon. “Don’t put yourself in danger.”
Alex grimaced, but pushed himself up onto one knee, ignoring the shaking of his hands as he clenched them into fists. “I need to stay and help you!”
“You’re not helping me at all right now!” Castor shouted, and Filmon hissed at this, scrabbling to stand back up straight and jabbing another Lightning Stinger toward Castor.
“I -” Alex started, getting to his feet, but Castor suddenly darted past him, with Filmon hot on his heels.
“
“You don’t understand,” Castor snarled, and Alex wasn’t sure if he was angry at him or Filmon. “If you stay around, you’ll just -” He exhaled sharply, shooting another Burn Flame at Filmon, who darted out of the way just in time.
Castor lifted a paw and slammed it into the ground, taking a step toward Filmon but tilting his head back toward Alex. “You’ll just bring me down!”
Alex caught sight of his partner’s eyes and almost felt as if he would collapse.
There was an emotion in his gaze that he had never seen before.
Alex blanked.
Is that what this was? Was this what Castor meant whenever he said Alex needed to stay out of things?
That he was just going to… bring him down?
He shook his head. No. No, I won’t.
And I’ll prove that to him, if I can -
“ALEX!”
Filmon roared, Alex’s train of thought stopped short, and his head shot up to meet Filmon’s eyes just as it lunged for him.
A thin flash of white leapt in from the side, striking Filmon and sending it flying off course, right in the direction where Alex was trying to run to.
The two of them collided, but Filmon’s claws had still been extended in its attack, and as they made contact, a very familiar flash of pain shot through Alex’s arm.
He did not scream. He hadn’t screamed the first time, those few days ago when he’d been stupid enough to go up against the Aegiochusmon - but that was because he’d passed out almost immediately afterward.
Alex did not pass out this time. It wasn’t nearly as serious an injury as the one from the Aegiochusmon, and despite the white-hot pain pulsing out from the wound, he knew it would only be a few days until he was right as rain again.
But seeing the injury down the length of his right arm - starting just below his sleeve and stopping a few inches above the wrist - was almost enough on its own to cause him to faint.
Almost. Not quite.
Alex choked on his own air, gasping for breath as he swiftly averted his gaze from the gash - his eyes fell on Filmon, a few feet away from him, just beginning to recover from its own daze.
It growled, its eyes locking onto Alex’s.
Alex breathed out hard, his lungs feeling as if they were full of sand, while the world seemed to split in two before his very eyes.
His shirt, already red, now stained an even darker shade - his head, still swirling with delirium - his arm, his chest, the burning sensation, the growing pit in his stomach - the wild unrestrained fervor flaring up in Castor’s red eyes as he opened his jaw and rounded on Filmon, red flames just beginning to build in the back of his throat - red like the blood smeared across Alex’s chest -
“
Alex flinched as Filmon, its white eyes wide, tried to get to its feet and out of the way just a moment too late.
Castor’s fireball crashed right into its chest.
Filmon screeched, the sound piercing Alex’s ears and echoing through the clearing. It scrabbled frantically, trying to push itself up, but its feet gave out beneath it and it crumpled to the ground.
The tips of its ears began to pixelate.
Filmon froze in place, its eyes narrowing. Its claws curled and began to glow yellow.
“
“
It didn’t even have a chance to move - in one swift movement, Castor was on it, his claws slicing through it like it wasn’t even there.
The red gleam from his own claws hadn’t even faded yet when Filmon disintegrated, yellow and white pixels floating into the air like embers from a fire.
The clearing fell silent for a moment.
Alex hacked out a cough, wiping his mouth with his uninjured arm, the other one still searing with pain. He placed his hands firmly on the ground, trying to push himself upright but failing miserably and falling to the ground once again. The injured arm, its flow of blood having ceased, protested strongly against the movement, sending another wave of agony through his body.
Alex bit down on his lip hard, his eyes squeezing shut.
“ALEX!”
…And there it was, the one thing Alex absolutely did not have to deal with right now, when he was in the second worst pain he had ever been in - namely, his very angry partner.
He did not open his eyes as Castor approached, his footsteps falling heavy on the ground and then slowing as he got closer.
He heard Castor halt a few steps away, and only then did he finally look up at him.
“What did I tell you?”
Alex held back a laugh, swallowing the lump growing in his throat. Wasting no time getting to the point, huh.
Castor sighed, his head dropping low. His expression was cold, no sympathy or pity present anywhere on his face.
Just… disappointment.
“I’m sorry -”
“No!” Castor snapped, his head rearing up as his eyes darkened. Alex clenched his jaw, his fingers curling into fists, still pressed against the dirt. Castor’s tail twitched, a snarl lacing the edges of his voice. “That isn’t going to cut it! Apologies aren’t going to heal you!”
“I -” Alex started again, faltering when he realized he didn’t have anything else to say.
“I don’t want an apology, I want you to do better!” Castor shook his head out. “Your stubbornness got you even more hurt than you already were, even opening up an old wound that had almost healed fully - you can’t just say sorry! That’s not good enough!”
Alex’s chest felt tight as he scrambled to find something, anything to say in rebuttal - an apology, a genuine apology, but that wasn’t going to work, was it?
“What is it you want from me, then?”
“You know what I want from you!” Castor said, his words cut clean and sharp. “I want you to stay out of fights and keep yourself safe and let me handle things!”
“You know I can’t do that,” Alex said, his voice fading away when Castor clicked his tongue.
“Well, you’re going to.”
There was no room for debate in his words; each one was spoken so carefully that Alex almost wondered if he had rehearsed this speech. Looming above him, his head lowered just enough to be within earshot, Castor looked furious, a wildfire blazing behind his eyes and spilling out between his teeth.
Alex felt sick.
“Come on,” Castor said, crouching low to the ground. “Let’s go see how everyone else is doing.”
Alex sighed, shakily getting to his feet. He nodded at Castor once he was fully upright and took a step to the side, but Castor’s tail swung around to block his path.
“No,” Castor said. “I’m not letting you walk in your condition. I’ll carry you.”
“Is that -” Alex snapped his mouth shut, recognizing the temper in the look Castor was giving him. Is that going to be comfortable? he thought instead. For either of us?
Resigning himself to his fate, Alex hoisted himself on top of Castor’s back, using his ridiculously limited knowledge of horseback riding to make it easy for both of them. Castor sank under his weight for a split second before standing back up properly, nodding at Alex over his shoulder before taking off at a dash, causing Alex to yelp and clutch tighter onto Castor’s cape.
“You’re just going to run?” Alex said, his voice drowned out by the wind whipping past. “Just like that?”
Castor seemed to hear him well enough. “We need to find the rest of the group as soon as possible,” he replied, making a sharp left turn that almost sent Alex flying off of him. “To get you patched up before you lose any more blood.”
“The bleeding has stopped,” Alex said, at the very same time that he felt a sudden pang from his arm. Grimacing, he chanced a look down at it, only to see fresh droplets of blood running down the length, whisked away into the air as Castor kept running.
“Yeah, sure,” Castor said, dipping his head. “Regardless, you are severely injured -”
Alex huffed. “It’s really not that bad.”
“- you are severely injured,” Castor repeated, his voice firmer this time, “and the sooner we find the group, the sooner you can begin to recover from that injury.”
“Cas,” Alex said, feeling his voice go rough but pushing through it anyways, “I am fine.”
“Stop saying you’re fine when it’s clear that you aren’t.”
The growl in Castor’s voice was so laden with anger that Alex instinctively went quiet, not wanting to incur any more of his wrath. Sighing, he leaned back, his fingers bunching up in the folds of Castor’s hood as he continued to weave through the trees.
It didn’t take long for them to find some of the others; faint sounds of battling drifted into earshot, and flashes of faraway color were visible in between the trees. Castor instantly changed course to head right for them, bursting into a clearing smaller than the one they had fought in to find Ren and Ember, both in their champion stages, up against two of the Filmon, while Harmony and Ezra watched on from safe distances away.
Alex’s grasp on Castor’s cloak tightened.
Castor skidded to a halt, sending Alex once again falling backward, and this time he did not manage to hold on, despite his firm grip on the cape. He tumbled to the ground, thankfully landing on his back and not either of his injuries, and barely had time to scoff at his partner before Castor was already bounding forward to assist Ren and Ember.
“Alex!” Harmony cried, rushing toward him as soon as she noticed him. Alex sat up as she approached, rubbing his back gently, and looked up at her just in time to see her expression shift from pleasant surprise to… not so pleasant surprise.
“What the -?” Harmony gasped, kneeling down in front of him as the light in her eyes flickered, back and forth almost like a candle, from confusion to dismay to shock. “What - what -”
She didn’t get to finish or even form her sentence before Ezra was at her side, something burning brightly in his own eyes. His hand darted out toward Alex, hovering just over the wound on his arm before drifting up to his face, the tips of his fingers gently brushing against his cheek.
Alex melted into his touch, his eyelids fluttering shut.
- and then they fluttered back open as a cry of “
Ezra hissed, retracting his hand as Alex scooched himself backward away from the Filmon. It wasn’t focused on them, fortunately, but it was still close enough where a stray attack could easily hit one of them, and with Ren already dashing forward, blue flames coating her body, it was very clear that they needed to find somewhere else to gawk over Alex’s fun new injuries.
“
Ezra hoisted Alex up, letting his arms fall over his shoulders, and managed to get out of Ren’s way just in time, practically leaping to the side to avoid her as she crashed into Filmon, blue fire flaring up around the two of them.
“Shit,” Alex said once they’d landed, the word practically knocked out of him from the force of their movement. Ezra shifted beside him, letting Alex lean on his chest as they crouched on the ground.
“Ren!” Harmony called out, coming to kneel next to the two of them. Her partner was still facing off against the Filmon, the fire just beginning to subside, but she pricked her ears toward Harmony anyway.
A red fireball smacked right into the Filmon’s cheek, causing it to hiss and focus on Castor, the one who’d sent it, giving Ren a moment to direct her full attention toward Harmony.
“Sorry!” she shouted, dipping her head slightly, before racing after the Filmon as it tried to dash away.
Harmony frowned. “I wasn’t mad at her,” she mumbled, before shaking her head out and arching her eyebrows at Alex. “We need to get you out of here as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he sighed, rubbing his arm gently. “I know.”
“This can’t keep happening,” Ezra said, his voice gentle but cold around the edges. “You need to take a step back and let those who are qualified to fight do the fighting.”
“Oh, not this lecture again,” Alex groaned, “and especially not from you -”
“It’s not a lecture!” Ezra snapped, his tone enough to send chills through Alex’s body. “I am worried about you!”
“Then don’t be!” Alex said, throwing his hand into the air, and Ezra scoffed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“That’s not how this works,” he said slowly, his jaw clenching. “I can’t just - I can’t not care about you.”
“Care about me a different way then,” Alex said, trying so hard to ignore Ezra’s words and all the implications and undertones they carried.
“Alex -” Harmony started, one hand reaching forward hesitantly, but Ezra’s next words sent it reeling back.
“I’m scared that one day you’re going to get hurt so badly that we won’t be able to save you!”
Harmony’s eyes trailed downward, clutching her hand to her chest, and Alex bit back every single argument and excuse he was mustering up.
Ezra exhaled sharply, looking off to the side. “I -” He cut himself off, his face contorting into an expression of regret, an emotion from him that Alex was almost entirely unfamiliar with.
But only almost.
“Those injuries from today, and a few days ago -” His words were cut short, clipped and trimmed so precisely that Alex felt a twinge of unease. “Yes, they’re bad, but they’re not life-threatening. I know this, and you know this, and I know that you know this.”
He paused here, opening and closing his mouth a few times, the illusion of his perfectly prepared speech shattered. “And that’s what scares me,” he finally said, holding his fist to his mouth for a split second. “Because there is a chance that you will only get more and more reckless from here on out, fueled by confidence that everything will be okay, because so far everything has been okay, comparatively.”
Alex felt an argument rising in his mouth - no, nothing has been okay, everything has been horrible for the past three weeks actually - but he kept his lips shut, not wanting to tear his eyes off of Ezra’s face.
And Ezra was still matching his gaze, something brimming in his eyes that Alex didn’t want to put words to but was too evident to ignore, and Alex had never been good at ignoring things about Ezra.
“You’re going to get yourself into something you can’t get out of, and none of us will be able to help you.”
Ezra’s eyes scrunched shut and - quick as a flash, barely giving Alex enough time to prepare for it - one of his hands reached forward to cup Alex’s cheek - fully this time, not just glazing over it like he had when they’d first arrived in the clearing.
His eyes still closed, Ezra let loose a shaky breath, his shoulders tensing. “I’m scared of losing you, Alex. I’m terrified.”
No sound would come out of Alex’s mouth, no matter how hard he tried - and by god, he was trying. It felt like a rock had gotten lodged in his throat, blocking any words trying to escape from his heart, except for the rock felt exactly like that feeling he got whenever he was about to cry.
Was he about to cry?
Alex coughed, and the rock came loose. No tears fell. A small part of him was glad they didn’t. This is not a good place to cry.
“I have to protect them,” he managed to get out, and Ezra’s fingers curled slightly against Alex’s skin. He wanted so desperately to reach his own hand up and pin them there, where they couldn’t move or ever let go, but he resisted the urge. “I can’t let them get hurt knowing that I could have prevented it.”
The “them” he was referring to remained unspoken, but the softening of Harmony and Ezra’s gazes were enough for him to know that they knew who he was talking about.
“What, by throwing yourself into harm’s way?” Ezra’s head fell a few inches, a sad smile forming upon his lips. “You can’t take every hit just to protect someone. That will kill you, Alex.”
Alex winced, shifting his injured arm just slightly enough where it wouldn’t hurt. “If it would prevent someone else from dying, I’ll take that risk.” Especially if it’s you.
Maybe he would have said it out loud, too, if not for the fact that immediately after he’d finished his sentence, a cry of “
A glance over at the still-battling Digimon revealed only one of the Filmon to be left, and it wasn’t looking like it would escape the same fate its friend had suffered. A swipe from Castor’s claws sent it skidding backward to crash against a tree trunk, sliding down along the bark until it laid in a heap at its roots.
Castor was on it in an instant, raising one paw - still glowing red from an attack - above its head, his claws curled and poised for an attack.
The Filmon lifted its head, staring up at Castor, and Alex’s heart stopped short in his chest.
Its eyes were -
That couldn’t be, though. They were infected. All of the Filmon had been infected.
So then why were this one’s eyes blue?
Alex blinked, shaking his head out to clear his mind. This couldn’t be real. Maybe he was seeing things?
Except Castor was also standing stock-still, as if frozen in place, his gaze locked on Filmon’s face.
He lowered his claws just a fraction of an inch, and then the Filmon’s eyes were white again (pure white, glazed over and lifeless), and it hoisted itself back up onto its feet, baring its teeth at Castor as it rushed forward -
“
Flames burst forth from between the two Digimon, and Ember was suddenly there, his wings splayed and arms reaching forward, throwing the Filmon back away from Castor with a fiery paw.
The Filmon collapsed on the grass and lay there, unmoving, for a solid few seconds, until the tips of its ears and paws began to pixelate - but not before it cracked a single eye open to stare at Alex.
Still blank. Still empty. Still enough to make his chest hurt.
Alex turned his head away.
“How bad is it?”
“Hmm.” Harmony pursed her lips, tapping her chin. “Yeah, it sucks, but it looks like you’ll be good to go in, like, a day or two.”
Alex squinted at her. “That… does not sound right.”
“I’m sorry, who’s the licensed doctor here?” she countered, folding her arms.
Alex stared at her blankly. “Neither of us,” he said, exhaustion creeping into his voice. “You are sixteen years old. You’re not a licensed anything.”
Harmony ignored him, gesturing with her hand for him to reach his arm out. Alex obliged with a roll of his eyes, flinching slightly as she grabbed it, too roughly and too close to his injury.
The bleeding had stopped before he and Castor had even stumbled across her in the clearing, but the pain was still ricocheting through his body, hitting him in all the wrong spots and sending out tides of faintness at all the wrong times. Even now he still felt a little shaken up, sitting on a fallen log by the bank of a river that they (the entire group - they’d regrouped shortly after the Filmon had been defeated) had stopped at for the night.
If “night” was even the proper word. Evening, maybe. Alex bit back a gripe about the current situation - they surely could have kept walking for much longer if Harmony and Castor hadn’t been so insistent on them calling it quits for the day. All because of his stupid decisions.
They didn’t want him to injure himself further by continuing to walk. Alex would have said something to them about it, something about him eventually injuring himself further no matter whether it was today or tomorrow or three weeks down the line, but the mix of emotions swirling in Ezra’s eyes had shut him up quickly enough.
And that was nothing about the way Castor had looked at him, keeping his gaze trained on him throughout the whole day, even after they had managed to meet back up with everyone else.
A small part of him did feel bad about it. They’d only been away from Hallowed Streets for four days, and they were already having to use some of their only medical supplies, all for something that could have been easily avoided.
And it didn’t help that he was still a little (well, more like a lot) on edge, even now, several hours after the incident. He hadn’t even really talked to Castor, even though they hadn’t been apart for more than a minute or two since then.
“I hate this,” he mumbled, his gaze trailing to the ground. “We shouldn’t have had to stop for the day just because of me.” He reached his opposite arm up, scratching at the back of his head.
Castor shifted where he lay, closer to the riverside than Alex, but where it was easy for him to keep an eye on the two of them as Harmony tended to Alex’s wounds.
And wounds it was, plural, because Harmony had been very adamant on taking care of his reopened chest wound as well, despite Alex’s endless protests and insistence that he was “fine” and “couldn’t even feel it”.
Which was, of course, a lie, and they both knew it, so Alex had resigned himself to his fate.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Harmony said reassuringly, giving him a sympathetic gaze. “Please stop moving, though, you’re just making it worse.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, looking off to the side. “Just… how much longer is this going to take?”
“Every time you complain, I’ll add five more minutes onto the timer,” she said, before twisting around to grab a damp washcloth. Alex rolled his eyes, sticking his arm out when she turned back.
Alex had made the strict decision that none of them - no one who had seen the Filmon’s eyes change - would speak a single word of the instance to anyone else. Harmony had protested at first, saying that the others deserved to know, and Ezra looked a bit uncomfortable (the last time we hid a secret from the group it ended so horribly - how can I put him through that again?), but Alex stood his ground. They needed to wait a while, see if it happened again, and if it did, figure out why.
Harmony had bit her lip, and Ezra’s eyes hadn’t met his own, but in the end, they’d both agreed.
“You said I would be fine within a day,” Alex said. “You can just clean me up and then we can keep walking.”
“That’s not how it works,” she said, dabbing gently at the blood that had dried on his arm. “I meant that it’ll be fine in a few days if you take care of it properly. Meaning don’t put unnecessary stress on it, clean it every day, and take it easy.”
“I don’t use my arms to walk,” he grumbled.
Harmony blinked at him slowly. “Have you already forgotten about the gaping wound in your chest?”
“I don’t use my chest to walk either.”
“Alex,” Harmony said firmly, fixing him with a hard stare at the same time as Castor gave him an unamused look. “Doctor’s orders are that you chill out for a few days while you recover. You’re not fit to be taking part in any physical activities.”
Alex huffed and swung his legs back and forth. “I can handle myself fine.”
“I’m not saying you can’t handle yourself,” she said, though her face betrayed her words, “but if you are bleeding from multiple wounds, it’s best to wait until they’re healed to get back into action.”
Like I’ll be partaking in any action after this, he thought bitterly, but he did not say it out loud - not with Castor within earshot.
“It’s just,” Harmony continued, touching a hand to her forehead for a moment, “I think you need to… take better care of yourself?”
Alex’s brow furrowed as he gritted his teeth. “I don’t need your opinion,” he muttered, ignoring Castor as he flicked his tail in irritation.
“You’ve been growing increasingly reckless over the past week or so,” Harmony said, seemingly unfazed by his retort, but he saw her hands twitch slightly. “If you keep going at this rate, you’re just going to end up -” She cut herself off here with a practically audible snap, averting her gaze from him as she turned around to fetch another wet washcloth.
Alex knew what she was going to say.
“You’re not any better than me,” he said, his voice surprisingly level. “I’m sure you remember Fangmon just as well as I do. Especially considering I’m not the one that -”
“That doesn’t have any bearing on this!” she exclaimed, clenching her fingers around the towel she held in her hand as she whirled around to face him again. “At least I’m not constantly throwing myself into danger! At least I know better than to try to fistfight a Digimon!”
Alex laughed, feeling something bitter in his mouth. “Isn’t that exactly what you did, though?”
“One time is enough for me!” Harmony said, her cheeks beginning to burn bright red. “At least I’ve learned my lesson! For you, it seems like you’ll never have your fill!”
“You don’t know what’s best for me!” Alex snapped, feeling his own face and ears heat up. He raised his hand to his face, covering his mouth as he tried to still his breathing.
“Maybe I don’t!” Harmony cried. Her hands were shaking now, and she fumbled with the towel in her grasp slightly. “Maybe I don’t know what’s best for you! Or anyone!” Shaking her head, she let out a sigh, fixing her eyes on his own. “But at least I can try to help you! Because I -”
A pounding noise filled Alex’s ears, drowning out anything else she may have said, and before he knew it he was cutting her off, speaking over her as if she wasn’t even there.
“I don’t need your help! I don’t need you for anything!”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them, and he recoiled into himself slightly as if the movement could take them out of thin air and place them back in his mouth, where he could swallow them and never let them out.
Something flashed in Harmony’s eyes, and she dropped the towel she was holding, her hands trembling even more fiercely. Castor perked his head up, his eyes narrowed.
Harmony opened her mouth a couple of times, each instance leading her eyes to glimmer more brightly and her shoulders to tense by her ears.
“Alex,” Castor said, his expression surprisingly calm.
“If you don’t want me here, fix it yourself!” Harmony shouted, finally managing to get something out, and she took a step back as she said it as if she were afraid it would provoke a physical response from Alex.
Silently, he cursed himself - for what he’d said, for what he’d gotten himself into today, for every bad decision he’d made since he’d come to this world.
Without another word, Harmony turned around and stomped out into the forest, kicking away the washcloth by her feet as she passed it.
“That’s not what I meant!” Alex called out after her, reaching his opposite hand out to grasp at the air as if it would bring her back, but she didn’t pause even once, keeping her fists clenched at her side and her head bent low, until she disappeared between the trees and the riverside was left in silence.
With a sigh, Alex lowered his arm, shaking his head out gently.
Castor sucked a breath in. “You kind of deserved that,” he said, his voice devoid of any sarcasm or humor.
Alex swallowed the words rising in his throat and closed his eyes. Pushing himself up from his seat, he steadied himself on the log for a second as he regained his balance.
With one last dark look at the space in the trees Harmony had disappeared into, he turned around and began to walk down the riverside, not even bothering to look at his partner.
But of course, Castor followed him, and Alex had half a mind at first to turn on him and shout at him to leave him alone. The urge dispelled itself quickly enough, and Alex paused for a split second, almost unsettled by the suddenness of its arrival and departure.
Then that thought, too, passed, and Alex powered onward downstream, one ear trained to the sound of Castor’s feet hitting the ground just as hard as his own, only a few yards behind him.
He came to a stop a few minutes later at a part in the river where it veered off to the other side slightly. Picking a spot next to the bank where the grass seemed softer, he sat himself down facing the rushing water, propping himself up with his good arm as he leaned back.
Castor came up to his right side, sitting down a few feet away and curling his tail around his paws. He angled his head down, his eyes on the river in front of them, but a twitch in his ears proved he was focused entirely on Alex.
“Why did you come with me,” Alex said, tilting his head down towards him. “Just to keep an eye on me? To make sure I’m not going to do anything else stupid?”
Castor growled low in his throat, cracking an eye open. “I’m sorry, am I missing something? Are you taking your anger out on me?”
“I’m not taking anything out on you,” Alex said, his voice quickly taking on a defensive tone. “I’m just -” He groaned, letting his upper body fall forward, his hands dangling low enough to where they could almost touch the water. “She’s being an asshole about it.”
Castor hummed quietly, adjusting his cape around his neck. “To be fair, she does have a point.”
“Of course you’d agree with her,” Alex said, rolling his eyes.
Castor stared up at him, his snout crinkling in annoyance. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”
Alex huffed. “Doesn’t really seem like it.”
“Again,” Castor said, his teeth bared slightly, “is something the matter? Why are you getting all pissy at me all of a sudden?”
“I’m not the one who’s upset here!” Alex shouted, standing up properly. “You’ve been mad at me all day and then you want to come along with me right after I lose my shit at someone?”
“I’m not mad at you,” Castor said, his voice rising in volume to match Alex’s.
“Yeah, right,” Alex said, his hand coming down to lightly graze against the opposite arm’s injury.
“I’m not mad at you,” Castor repeated, his claws gripping at his hood hard enough to stretch the fabric out to its fullest extent. “I just -”
“Then what has everything from today been?” Alex turned to face Castor fully, leaning down closer to him for fuller effect. “All your shouting at me and telling me what and what not to do. If you haven’t been upset, what else has it been?”
Castor’s eyes narrowed as he shifted backward. “I’ve just been -”
“Or maybe you weren’t upset at me earlier today,” Alex continued, rising to his full height again. He turned around, pacing in a circle away from Castor, fixing his gaze on the tree branches overhead. “Maybe it was during the fight? When I got hurt? You were pretty mad then, I remember.”
Shaking his head out, he turned back around to face Castor, who was standing with his legs splayed, tail lashing wildly. “I’d be pretty mad too if my partner got himself hurt because he wanted to be helpful. If he’d nearly died all because he didn’t want to feel like he couldn’t do anything. I would be so angry.”
“Alex,” Castor said slowly.
“Wouldn’t you be mad?” Alex said, just as slow, his chin tipping upward again. “Wouldn’t you be furious if -”
“I am not mad at you!”
Alex opened his mouth to say something - something like “well then why did you” or “so then what are you” or something, anything - but the moment he looked down at Castor’s face, at all the despair and determination evident on it, he felt his breath hitch, and he coughed, his hands shooting up to cover his mouth.
Anything he may have wanted to say was completely out of his mind now.
With a shaky sigh, Alex placed himself down on the ground, crossing his legs and dropping his hands into his lap as he stared straight at Castor.
Castor was still for a moment - Alex was almost certain he was going to walk away, or stay where he was, or do anything except for what Alex wanted him to do - but then his head dropped low and he took a few steps forward to sit down next to Alex.
“I’m not mad,” he said after a brief pause, his voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t think I could ever be mad at you.”
Something stung in the corners of Alex’s eyes and he swallowed hard, looking up toward the treetops as he blinked rapidly to clear his sight.
“But you’re disappointed,” he said, working his words around the lump in his throat as best as he could.
If Castor noticed the roughness of his voice, he didn’t say anything about it. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” He sighed. “I’m worried about you. You’ve always been sort of… reckless.” His words were stilted, and he fiddled with the collar of his cape as he spoke. “It’s gotten worse since the Aegiochusmon. Any sensible person would be more cautious after an experience like that, but you…”
Alex nodded, not wanting to interrupt, but excuses and explanations were practically pushing at his mouth, taking all his effort to hold them back.
“I’m not saying that there’s a deeper-rooted issue there or anything,” Castor continued, and Alex couldn’t resist a sarcastic snort, earning a wry smile from Castor. “There obviously is, but I’m not going to try to get you to talk about it if you don’t want to. But…” He broke off here, tipping his head to the side. “I just want… I need you to understand that I’m just trying to help you.”
“I know,” Alex said, reflexively, and he shut his mouth as soon as he realized he’d cut him off, but Castor barely seemed to care.
“I know that you can make your own decisions,” he said - his words had begun to pick up as he’d been talking, and they now flowed out of him as easily as the water flowed down the river - “and I know that I can’t control you. That’s not what I want.”
Heaving a sigh, Alex nodded again, propping his chin up and looking out at the trees on the other side of the river. Castor was quiet for a couple seconds, one paw raised an inch or two above the ground, before his shoulders slumped and he shook his body out.
“What I want,” he said, his brow furrowed, “is for you to make your own decisions.”
“I have been,” Alex mumbled, his eyes sliding over to Castor just in time to see the dragon shake his head.
“I mean your own. For you. Not anyone else.”
Alex frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It seems like everything you do, you do it for someone else.” Castor shrugged. “Your first thought is always to protect others.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” Alex said, feeling a fire rising in his chest. “I have to protect them. That’s my job.”
“Your job is to stay alive long enough so we can save the world,” Castor said harshly, his eyes narrowing. “I can’t do this without you.”
Alex rolled his eyes, ignoring the way Castor’s tail twitched in annoyance. “You seem to be doing a pretty good job without me in literally every single fight.”
“That’s not ‘without you’!” Castor barked, rising to his feet and taking a step towards him. “You have no idea how much you help me in those fights! I wouldn't be able to evolve without you! I wouldn’t have half the courage I do in battles if I didn’t know you were the one giving me that strength!”
“That’s not enough for me!” Alex cried, spreading his hands out wide and flinching as he strained his injured arm too hard.
“Then what is?” Castor shouted, stomping a paw against the ground, his tail lashing back and forth violently. “What is enough for you? When are you going to realize that you can’t take every hit? I’m not going to let you die because you’re too stubborn to save yourself!”
Alex pulled back slightly. Castor’s expression was dark, and even now - even with everything they’d said to each other over the day, even with Alex’s injury earlier - this was the most intense he had seen him.
“I’m not going to die,” he said, because even with the way Castor was looking at him, he wasn’t going to back down just yet.
And also because he had to say it out loud. To make it seem more real. To reassure Castor.
To reassure himself.
But Castor was having none of it. “You don’t know that,” he said. “You don’t know what this world can do to you. Can do to anyone.”
“Do you?” Alex asked instantly, more a rhetorical question than anything - but the suddenness of Castor’s reply made him deflate immediately, a pit growing in his stomach.
“Yes.”
The fight died in Alex’s chest and he sank backward. Castor’s tone was heavy, and the bluntness of his reply - one singular word, said with such certainty - was enough to shut Alex up entirely.
…Well, almost entirely.
“What do you mean?”
He already knew, of course - it was obvious from the way Castor’s eyes trailed away from Alex’s, staring off into the distance, as if he was looking at someone else entirely.
“Aldamon.”
Alex nodded, swallowing hard and pressing his hands deeper into the grass. Castor didn’t speak for a while, and Alex was almost convinced that that was all he was going to say, but just as he was about to get up, Castor sighed and closed his eyes.
“Aldamon died to protect me. I don’t want the only person I have left to suffer the same fate. I couldn’t take that.”
Alex didn’t know what to say. Ever since that night on the mountain, Castor had been… different. More reserved. Less open to sharing his opinions. More protective of Alex.
And he’d known why - deep in his heart, where he hadn’t even bothered to look, because he’d been so caught up with everything else going on, he had known all along that this was why.
Alex let out a shaky sigh, his breath rattling in his chest.
All this time, Alex had only been thinking about trying to help Castor, because he thought Castor needed his help, without sparing even a single thought as to why it was that he needed it.
But he didn’t. He didn’t need his help at all - he’d been saying it all day, but Alex, ever the stubborn, emotionally-inert person he was, hadn’t heeded his words, because he’d thought his own perspective was more important.
Better late than never, I suppose.
“What do you want from -” Alex was fumbling over his words hard now. He didn’t even want to say anything - he wasn’t sure if he was making any sense - but he had to say something, to show Castor that he cared. “What do you need from me, now?”
Castor gave him a weary smile, the tiredness in his eyes almost enough to break Alex’s heart into pieces. “I need you to find a way to help without putting yourself in danger.” He dipped his head, staring down at his claws, his tail curling tighter around his feet. “No trying to fight Digimon. No trying to win every battle. No trying to save me.”
His voice grew cold at the last sentence, eyes hardening and ears flicking back. Alex stared at him for a moment, then scooched himself closer, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him to his chest.
Castor did not resist the embrace, but rather sank into it, bumping his forehead against his chin. Alex dug his fingers into the creases of Castor’s cape, holding him so close he could feel his heartbeat pounding against Castor’s body.
“I’m sorry,” was all he could manage to choke out, budding tears forming in the corners of his eyes. He sniffed, reaching a hand up to wipe them away.
“It’s not your fault,” Castor murmured.
They sat there for what felt like years, saying nothing to each other, the only sounds being the rushing of the river and gentle breezes sweeping through the branches above them.
Until - perhaps half an hour later, though Alex wasn’t sure - a roar, far off in the distance, shook the trees, and Alex reached a hand out to steady himself on the ground.
He frowned in the direction of the noise, then down to Castor, who met his gaze evenly. Castor hummed to himself, cocking his head to the side.
“We should head back,” he said, standing up and shaking himself out. “We don’t know how far away that is from everyone else. We might need to be there to help.”
Alex’s heart fell in his chest, but he nodded, following Castor’s lead and pushing himself back on his feet. Castor waited for Alex to give him a thumbs up before heading off back in the direction they’d come from, Alex close behind.
The fading afternoon had already given way to twilight, the sun just barely peeking over the skyline, obscured even more by the densely packed foliage in its way. Navigating the Starwoods at night was not particularly difficult - despite the heavy tree cover, the forest itself was never truly pitch black, perhaps helped by the dozens of stars that speckled the sky every night without fail.
But there were no stars out quite yet, and with the ever-sinking sun providing little light to guide them, they had to stop every few minutes to confirm they were still headed in the correct direction. Following the river made things easier, but even so, the two of them often veered too far off course than they should have, and the river was not loud enough for them to locate it from sound alone.
…Especially since the roaring hadn’t ceased.
The first time they heard it again, it sounded from as far off as it had the first time. Alex blinked, stopping in his tracks just as Castor did as well, and they exchanged glances the best they could in the low light before shrugging and continuing on their way, albeit at a slightly faster pace.
And then it came again, and again, and then a fourth time, and by the fifth they were at a full-out run, forgoing the guidance of the river entirely in favor of just getting to whatever was making that noise as quickly as they could.
They found it all too soon, and it was only because Castor, twenty feet ahead of Alex, smacked directly into its leg, letting out a yelp as he hopped backwards.
Alex skidded to a stop next to him, his chest heaving as he fought to reclaim his breath, and the Digimon turned around to face them.
It was a huge crimson dragon - Alex was unsure how neither he nor Castor had managed to see it before running into it head-on - with black stripes and a stark-white belly, accentuating its silvery-white claws and the mane flowing from its scalp and neck. Two large horns sprouted from its forehead, only a few inches longer than the rows of sharp teeth lining its mouth.
It took one long, narrow-eyed look at both boy and dragon, its tail thrashing slowly behind it, before it roared again, spraying flecks of spittle everywhere as the surrounding trees trembled - perhaps out of fear, perhaps from the sheer force of the creature’s cry.
Oh, and a detail that Alex hadn’t necessarily overlooked, but had been putting off noticing until the very last moment in the hopes that maybe he was wrong: its eyes were, expectedly, pure white.
“Shit,” he said.
“Alex,” Castor said in a low voice, as if he were afraid any loud noises would signal for the Digimon to attack. “Please actually follow my advice this time.”
Alex sucked a breath in, already digging into his pocket to find his phone, and saluted. “Yessir.”
Castor nodded once, then leapt at the Digimon with glowing red claws, already halfway to it before he even bothered to shout “
The Digimon recoiled, its brows knotting together slightly, before it bared its teeth and deflected Castor with a claw, sending him spinning off to the side.
Not a great start to things!
“Where are you,” Alex mumbled, swiping to the last page on his home screen and launching the digivice app. Over the past few days, he’d gotten a bit more used to the feeling of the device changing in his hands, but even so, he still flinched at the sensation running over his palms.
Casting a cursory glance over at Castor to make sure he wasn’t entirely down for the count - good, he isn’t - he selected the analyzer option on the digivice and pointed it up at the red dragon, wincing slightly as he moved his arm too quickly. The dragon was focused on Castor, but whether that was a good thing or not was still up for debate.
“Growlmon,” the digivice said, the voice smooth but still jarring to hear when unaccompanied by furious battle sounds in the background. “Champion level demon dragon Digimon. Its roar has the power to shake the solid earth -” Alex snorted “- and before battle, it raises its voice to an offensive volume to intimidate the opponent.”
Here he frowned, lowering his arm slowly so he could get a better look at the scene in front of him. Castor was already up again, though he seemed to be taking his time and figuring out a better plan of attack than just “rush at the enemy until it gives up”.
Alex himself was doing a fine job of keeping himself out of harm’s way thus far, too. Granted, Growlmon hadn’t actually attacked them yet, so -
“
Well, nevermind on that.
Growlmon was still entirely fixated on Castor, and as such, the attack was aimed at him. Its jaws opened wide, flames building in the back of its throat before they were unleashed in a scorching burst.
Castor, not having taken his eyes off of it for even a moment, dodged it perfectly - near perfectly. He leapt to the side, the very end of his tail getting caught in the blast range, and Alex saw him wince before shaking himself out and spinning back around.
“Can you -” Alex called out, before Castor began to glow and his digivice began to speak again.
“Evolution engaged. Please do not turn off the phone while evolution is in progress.”
“Well, that was easy,” he mumbled, stuffing the device back in his pocket as gently as he could.
Growlmon took a step back, the light having faded from Castor and revealing his champion form. It blinked a few times, its head lowering slightly, before it straightened back up to its full height and let out another roar.
“
He made contact and nudged Growlmon back another foot or so - it dug into the earth as it moved, trying to right itself. It swung its tail into Castor on his way out, hitting him directly in the chest, a heavy gasp escaping his jaws as he crumpled to the ground a few feet away.
Alex bit his lip a little too hard but steeled himself where he stood, resisting all the urges and voices in his head screaming at him to go over and help him back up.
Castor’s tail twitched and he shakily pushed himself to his feet. His head hung low, his cape bunched up on his back from being caught on one of his scales, and he breathed out slowly as he lifted his chin to stare back at Growlmon.
It narrowed its eyes down at Castor and began to glow.
Not the way Castor had minutes prior (though Alex knew it was for the same reason); it was bathed in a deep red aura, almost black in color, as opposed to Castor’s brighter red. The light stretched up along its body, expanding and stretching, and then it got way too loud in the clearing, the high-pitched ringing noise a stark contrast to the silence that Alex was used to during evolutions. He hissed, hiking his shoulders up and clasping his hands over his ears.
Growlmon’s face was covered last, its pure white eyes the final thing both of them saw until the light burst, shrinking as quickly as it had grown until what was left was finally fully visible.
Tentatively, Alex removed his hands from the sides of his head and breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing the sound had died down - except no, he couldn’t breathe, because there was now a much bigger, much angrier dinosaur in front of them.
Alex hadn’t even realized that he had moved to Castor’s side (or maybe Castor had come to him?) until he instinctively reached out to bundle his fingers in the folds of his cape. Castor’s body tensed and Alex glanced over, his shoulders slumping as he took in his face.
Too many emotions to put a proper name to, and yet Alex could identify all of them. Fear. Despair. Anger.
Exhaustion.
And he realized in a single instant where he’d seen that look on his face before - up on the mountain, in the pouring rain, as fire flared up around them and lightning crashed down behind them and Castor looked back over his shoulder one last time.
Alex curled his hand into a fist, then instantly released it from Castor’s cloak, dropping it to his side.
Shaking his head, he pulled his digivice out again and pointed it at the new Digimon, trying to still his trembling fingers as he got a clear shot of it.
The voice was almost sickening to hear in the silence of the forest. “WarGrowlmon. Ultimate level cyborg Digimon. As its name suggests, its body has grown gigantic, and its upper body has been metallized with Chrome Digizoid.”
Yeah, that sounded about right.
It was obviously the same Digimon as before - the familiar black-striped body, shock of silvery hair running down its scalp and neck, lashing red tail - but it now sported several metallic additions, most notable being the huge blades attached to the sides of its arms, the metal plates covering its chest, and the thrusters extending from its shoulders. From its back stretched a long cable, coiling around its feet like a resting snake.
And its eyes hadn’t changed either. Of course.
Alex didn’t know why he had been hoping they would. Maybe it was the situation with the Filmon earlier, weeding its way into his brain. Maybe it was some desperate hope he was holding onto.
“Fine,” Castor spat, lifting a paw and flexing his claws. He paused, his eyes flitting over to Alex, who straightened up as he fell under his attention.
“It doesn’t seem to care about you too much when you stay quiet,” Castor said, just under his breath. “Use that to your advantage.”
Alex blinked and Castor whisked his cape to the side, running full-tilt at WarGrowlmon. He leapt to the side as he got close to it, dodging a swipe of its claws and spinning on his heel to face it when he landed. “
WarGrowlmon roared, its undivided attention once again on Castor, and then it clicked.
What was it that Castor wanted? For Alex to stay out of harm’s way and not put himself in any unnecessary danger?
Alright. He was starting to get an idea.
It was better than sitting around doing nothing and better than throwing himself directly into the fight. Two birds with one stone.
WarGrowlmon was drawn to sound, it seemed - it hadn’t looked at Alex until he said something loud enough for it to hear, and it was really interested in Castor whenever he called out an attack.
Alex squinted, scanning his surroundings as he took a few steps backward out of the clearing.
A large stick, sitting at the base of a tree, caught his eye, and he narrowed in on it in an instant. Picking it up, he turned it around in his hands - heavy enough to be worth a try, light enough to carry easily.
Alex turned around and took a few decisive steps closer to where WarGrowlmon was staring down at Castor. He was right-handed, but his right arm was his injured arm, so he gripped the stick in his left, hoped for the best, and threw it with all his might.
Almost before it had even left his grip, he realized just what a stupid idea this was, and so he sprinted in the opposite direction as fast as his legs could take him as soon as he threw it. He heard the stick collide with WarGrowlmon - a resounding tong - and froze in his tracks, about fifteen or twenty yards away from where he’d started.
WarGrowlmon growled low in its throat, still loud enough for Alex to hear and feel it from where he stood, and turned toward… where the stick had come from. Where Alex was no longer standing.
Where there was nothing.
WarGrowlmon’s eyes narrowed, and it made to turn again - but Castor was already on it, claws burning with bright red energy.
“
WarGrowlmon stumbled back upon impact, its tail lashing as it struggled to balance itself. “
Castor caught Alex’s eye, directly across the clearing, and smiled at him.
Good! That was good! That made Alex feel really good about what he had done. Finally he had a way to help.
WarGrowlmon was slow and not interested in having objects thrown at it. Alex was fast and very good at throwing objects. Castor was also fast and the only one who could actually deal damage to it. If Alex distracted WarGrowlmon long enough for Castor to get an attack in, then they could chip away at its health until it either died or ran away. Preferably died.
This was working. They could do this.
They continued in this style for a while longer: Alex finding something to throw at WarGrowlmon and then running around it so that it couldn’t see him, Castor hurling an attack at it while it was distracted, WarGrowlmon getting pissed and attacking Castor back, sometimes missing, sometimes hitting (those were the worst times). Alex’s injuries flared up every now and then, but he made sure to keep an eye on them, stopping when the pain got too bad and avoiding straining his arm too much. It was a good cycle, one which Alex could repeat over and over without having to think about it too much.
But it wasn’t working fast enough.
Castor signaled to Alex during their sixth round in, and Alex nodded back at him, chucking the stone he held in his hands at WarGrowlmon and running around to the opposite side of the clearing. This time, Castor ignored WarGrowlmon, instead racing up to Alex and sliding to a halt next to him.
“This is great and all,” Castor panted, still struggling to catch his breath. Alex peeked over his shoulder at WarGrowlmon, just in case it decided to pull a surprise attack on them. It was still thrashing its tail about in anger at the direction the rock had come from; they were good for the time being. “But it’s just delaying the inevitable.”
Alex bit his lip, running a hand through his hair. “‘The inevitable’ being…?”
“It winning,” Castor said. He flicked an ear back, lifting his snout towards WarGrowlmon as well. His eyes fell down towards the earth, his claws digging into the grass. “I’m - I don’t know if I can keep doing this much longer.”
Alex’s gut churned, and he squashed the feeling down. “Sure you can,” he said, trying to sound encouraging, but when the words came out they just sounded desperate. “We just have to go a little longer.”
“That’s not going to work,” Castor snapped, lifting his head up again but fixing his gaze on WarGrowlmon. Alex followed his line of view and saw the red dinosaur, unsatisfied with the results of its search, taking slow and heavy steps towards them. “Stay here,” Castor said, and Alex had to stop himself from reaching out and grabbing onto him.
Castor was gone in the blink of an eye, white and red streaking by and heading for WarGrowlmon.
He was back soon enough - almost too soon, if Alex had anything to say about it - a result of WarGrowlmon hitting him with a Radiation Blade and sending him skidding back toward where Alex was hiding.
“Cas,” Alex said, holding a hand out, and Castor glanced over at him as he struggled upright. “I know what this is about.”
“Oh, do you,” Castor grunted, reaching a claw back to smooth his cape out. “Observation skills fantastic as always. Hurry up with your point, please.”
Alex scrunched his face up in annoyance, but did not goad him on. “I know that you think we can’t win this because you’re not strong enough.”
“We can’t,” Castor said, in such a matter-of-fact tone that Alex wanted to sit him down and yell at him very loudly, but that could be saved for a different time.
“We can.”
Castor didn’t even spare him a passing look as he took off towards WarGrowlmon again, his claws barely flashing red before they made contact with its stomach. It roared and swiped down at him, but he was out of the way before it could hit, running around to its back and shooting a fireball at it.
Alex shook his head out and scoped the ground out for anything else, but he couldn’t find anything before Castor was back at his side again.
“Last time I faced an ultimate on my own,” Cas started, his voice low and eyes trained on WarGrowlmon, but Alex held a hand out to stop him.
“I know what this is about,” he said again, and Castor rolled his eyes. “You weren’t strong enough last time, so now you think you can’t do it this time either.”
Castor stayed quiet, and Alex sucked a breath in before continuing.
“But you are strong enough.”
Castor paused here, turning entirely around to face Alex, though an ear remained pinned back toward WarGrowlmon.
“Aldamon believed in you,” Alex said, trying to get the words out as quickly as possible while also giving enough time for them to sink in fully, “because if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have sent you out here on your own.”
Castor remained silent, thank god, because I am not in the mood to speak over him right now, and Alex continued. “And I believe in you. I believed in you then and I believe in you now, maybe even more so this time around, because we’ve been through hell in the past two weeks, and it has all made you stronger.”
“What are you getting at,” Castor said, turning around just long enough to spit another fireball at WarGrowlmon. It roared, and took a step back, but did not remain stunned for long.
Alex inhaled, his shoulders releasing a tension he hadn’t known he’d been holding as he closed his eyes. “Maybe you couldn’t do it last time,” he said, “but you can do it this time.”
He opened his eyes, staring at WarGrowlmon first, and then Castor. “If you don’t want this to turn out like it did last time, then don’t let that happen.”
For a second he almost thought Castor was going to ignore him, turn around and keep hurling attacks at WarGrowlmon until he couldn’t take any more and collapsed. For a second he was worried it wasn’t enough; for a second, for only a split moment in time, Alex worried that he was not enough.
If this wasn’t enough, then it didn’t matter whether he was “doing his best” or not, no matter what that stupid text message had said. He still would have failed.
“Will you do your best?” it had said, arriving at exactly midnight only a few days before he’d been stupid enough to click that spam link.
Alex had laughed at it when he’d seen it. When was the last time he’d actually been able to do the best work possible? Sure, he always tried. But it was never enough.
No matter what he did, it never seemed to be enough for anyone.
But he’d said yes anyways. He’d actually replied to it the next morning. Perhaps it was fate that the guy who was stupid enough to reply to a text message like that was the one who had gotten himself and five other kids stuck in a world trying to kill them.
He’d lied to a stranger and then, mere days later, he’d nearly died. A strange chain of events, but one that had occurred nevertheless, and now every day he was paying the price for it.
Except it wasn’t actually so bad anymore. Sure, nearly dying everyday still sucked, but… he’d made a lot of friends here. And he was trying to save the world. Not a lot of people could say the same.
So, you know what? Even if it wasn’t the best he could do, even if he still slipped up every now and then, he was still doing his best. And that was enough.
Yes, he said to himself, yes, I will do my best. Get fucked, unknown number. Sorry I lied to you, but it’s true now.
Castor exhaled, shaking his head slowly, and a smile slowly spread across his face. “I know I said I don’t need any moral support from you,” he mumbled, rolling his shoulders, “but hell if you aren’t good at it.”
Alex grinned back. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Castor dipped his head, his eyes locking onto Alex’s. “That’s not all you’re here for. You’re worth so much more than you think.”
“I know,” Alex said. “I know.” Because he did know. “But that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” Castor said, and for once today, his eyes did not say differently. “Just having you around is enough.”
And it was enough. And he was enough. And even if his brain or some motherfucker hiding behind an unknown number were telling him differently, the unspoken words hanging between the two of them were enough to show him that they were liars and Castor was not.
And that was enough.
“Alright,” Castor said, turning upon WarGrowlmon, who had had the decency to leave the two of them alone during their talk. “Let’s finish this for good.”
Alex nodded, and Castor threw him one last glance, and then, from his pocket, Alex felt his digivice begin to vibrate and beep.
“Ultimate evolution engaged,” said the voice from his phone, and Alex thought he would pass out.
It had been enough.
“Please do not turn off the digivice while evolution is in progress.”
Next to him - still standing next to him, of course - Castor began to glow bright white.
WarGrowlmon roared, the light grew and expanded, and Alex closed his eyes.
“
The glow subsided, and Alex’s eyelids flickered open. Castor had taken a step forward, standing in between Alex and WarGrowlmon - who he now stood at the same height as - and Alex’s head tipped back so he could look up into his face.
Castor caught his gaze and winked.
He was bipedal now; his legs were still blades, as they were in his champion form, and he hovered just a few feet off the ground, giving him the illusion of being taller than he really was, but even his true height was enough to cause Alex’s heart to skip a beat. His signature blood-red cape still fluttered out behind him, the teeth that had circled the hood in his champion stage now longer and much more menacing. Two long blades were affixed to his arms, stretching out far beyond his claws, matching the one that adorned the tip of his tail. A bright yellow gem sat in the center of his chest, which was now almost akin to an open ribcage, white stripes layered over black to give the appearance of bones.
He flicked his tail, sending his cloak rippling, and slashed an arm out in front of him.
Alex’s digivice spoke again, startling him out of his reverie. “SaviorHackmon. Ultimate level dragon man Digimon. It has brought aid to many Digimon, and though the result is not always a success, the tears it sheds strengthen it further as it reaches out to the next Digimon that cries for help.”
WarGrowlmon grumbled low in its throat, taking a cautious step backward, and Castor - quick as a flash, faster than Alex had ever seen him move in any form - was upon it, placing one of the blades on his arms along its throat. WarGrowlmon stayed completely still, seemingly aware of the danger it was in, though it narrowed its eyes slightly and curled its lip.
Castor pressed forward slightly, earning a hiss from WarGrowlmon.
“You,” he said, his voice rich and deep, “have been a massive pain in the ass today.”
He released WarGrowlmon with a flourish, sending it coughing and hunching over close to the ground, its eyes still fixed on him.
Castor raised his arm again, the blade reaching out towards WarGrowlmon. “
He rushed forward, the swords aimed right for WarGrowlmon, and he hit it straight on, sending it reeling backward and flailing to regain its balance. It collapsed to the ground, its tail thrashing wildly, before - after a few moments of hesitation - it pushed itself back up to its feet.
“Persistent,” Castor mused, casting a look back over his shoulder at Alex. Alex blinked, giving him a thumbs up, and Castor smiled slightly.
…And then the cable on WarGrowlmon’s back shot forward towards Castor, and Alex reached out, opening his mouth to shout a warning. No words came out.
The cable came to a stop, at the limit of its length, a few feet away from Alex’s face.
Barely able to breathe, barely able to think, Alex looked up at Castor.
Who was fine.
Completely fine, save for the fact that his cape was currently home to a very large hole in which the cable stretched though.
Castor turned a devastating stare upon WarGrowlmon, his shoulders rolling back and head tilting low.
“How rude,” he said, a venomous edge to his tone. “This is brand new.”
WarGrowlmon snarled again, and Castor whisked his cape away.
“You’re going to die, you know,” Castor said.
WarGrowlmon fell silent.
Castor’s expression was dark, a grim frown etched upon his face. “I wish it could be any other way,” he murmured, Alex straining to hear him. “But you are not yourself, and you might never be yourself again.”
His head snapped up, red eyes meeting white. “And that is a risk we cannot afford to take.”
“
WarGrowlmon’s face contorted in rage upon seeing Castor dodge, and it stomped a foot on the ground, throwing its head back and roaring again.
“One day,” Castor said, “this won’t happen again.”
Alex inhaled, the first breath he’d been aware of in quite some time. Castor paused.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and Alex wasn’t sure if it was toward him or WarGrowlmon. “This is how it must be.”
WarGrowlmon stared at him for a few moments more, until - to Alex’s surprise - it closed its eyes, its head dropping low.
Castor examined it for a moment before dipping his own head.
“
He shot forward, swinging his legs up and cleaving across WarGrowlmon’s chest, finishing off with a swipe across its face from his tail.
He danced backward, coming back to stand at Alex’s level, as WarGrowlmon began to pixelate and Castor himself began to glow again.
A moment later, Castor was back in his rookie form, nudging up against Alex’s legs. He crouched down, placing a hand on his head, before turning back for one last look at WarGrowlmon as it finally dissipated.
He almost wished he hadn’t, because as he did, he saw the one thing he had been hoping he wouldn’t: bright yellow irises around a slit pupil, staring right back at him as if they knew how much he hated it.