EPISODE 20 - COUNT YOUR DREAMS
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I don’t know what I’m talking about?” Ezra said, folding his arms across his chest and staring very pointedly at Harmony, walking beside him, hands on her hips. “I didn’t know I was talking to an expert on surviving in the wilderness. Sure would have been nice if you’d have helped us a little bit more back when we actually needed this information.”
“Ouch,” Harmony mumbled, shooting him a light glare, and he smiled back. She rolled her eyes. “I’m still right though.”
“You absolutely are not,” Ezra said, shaking his head. “If you get lost in the wilderness you are very likely to be found within a day or two, maybe three if you’re unlucky. Staying put is the best thing you can do.”
“How will anyone know where I am if I just stay still?” she said.
“Because ideally you’d have told someone you were going to be fucking off into the woods,” Damien said, from Harmony’s other side, “before you’d even left your house.”
Ezra nodded sagely. “People typically don’t just randomly and unexpectedly appear in the middle of the wilderness miles away from civilization.”
“That feels a little targeted,” Alex said from a few steps ahead, without looking behind him, and Ezra grinned.
Flip and Bumble’s final fight with MarineDevimon had been three days ago, and fortunately the group hadn’t run into it since. It didn’t mean they hadn’t had any encounters since then - a couple more manic Digimon had appeared here and there, though all of them were champion level and easy enough to deal with - but MarineDevimon had been the main source of their troubles, so its disappearance had taken a lot of pressure off of them. They were still keeping an eye out for it, not fully trusting it to be gone for good, but with each passing day it was looking more and more likely that it wasn’t going to be back anytime soon.
Honestly, it had gotten everyone in pretty high spirits, with not having to worry about it anymore. It had been the only ultimate level they’d come across since… the last one, and even when it’d been a problem, it appeared infrequently. Now that it wasn’t a problem, though, the group could rest easy for the time being, knowing that most of the Digimon they’d come across in the next few days would only be champion-levels.
Nobody knew how long “the next few days” would be, of course, but they were trying to be optimistic.
Optimism had been hard for them over the past week, but again, they were trying.
The slightly improved general mood of the group had made casual conversation a lot easier. They were trying to avoid any more conversations about the Catalyst and their missing piece and File Island, and though those topics came up every now and then (which made sense, really), mostly they just talked about very mundane, ordinary things. Such as getting lost in the woods, which had absolutely nothing to do with their current state - they were still on the coast - but was an important enough topic to be the subject of a very important debate.
“You’re going to be on a hiking trail and someone is going to find you eventually,” Ezra continued, turning to Harmony. “If you’re lost for a few days you can easily build your own shelter, and you won’t need food if you have water, which you would if you were going hiking.”
“What if I don’t?” Harmony said. “What if I didn’t bring any supplies?”
“Then you’re fucked and whatever you do doesn’t really matter,” Damien said. “You’re going to die no matter what.” Harmony pushed him away forcefully, but he recovered quickly, shoving her aside with his shoulder in turn. She huffed as she righted herself, narrowly avoiding colliding with Ezra, and stuck her tongue out at Damien.
“Well,” Alex said, looking back over his shoulder, “we got dropped here with no supplies and we survived.”
“An unfortunate thing, really,” Damien mumbled, and Harmony slapped her hand over his mouth.
“You didn’t stay put like Ezra is saying you should have,” Castor said, looking up at Alex and then back at Ezra. His tail dragged behind him, drawing grooves in the sand that were quickly covered up by the footprints of the humans and Digimon behind him. “And you still survived.”
“We got lucky,” Ezra said, his turn to feel a little targeted. “It wasn’t my idea to pick a random direction and start walking.”
“You could have stopped me,” Alex said.
Ezra snorted. “No I couldn’t have.”
“Yeah, you couldn’t have,” Alex said with a grin.
Ember, Ren, and Bumble had been mostly staying out of the conversation - Ember and Ren didn’t really have anything they could add, having no knowledge of what a human was supposed to do if they got lost in the woods (and besides, Ren was never one for these sorts of conversations anyways), and Bumble was being Bumble, keeping to himself. Ember would chime in every now and then to back Ezra up or ask a question, but that was the extent of it.
Castor, on the other hand, was loving it. He was listening with rapt attention, asking more serious questions and actually seeming to absorb the information. He found it fascinating that Ezra was so informed on the subject and was so determined to die on this hill.
He also found it fascinating that everything Ezra was saying went against what the group had done when they had first arrived in the Digital World. Ezra got the feeling he wasn’t going to let it go for a long while.
“My point still stands,” Ezra continued, turning back to Harmony, who had taken her hand off of Damien’s mouth but was shooting him a warning glare. “If you get lost, stay put until you can’t anymore. Someone will find you. Especially if you have a phone that works that you can call a rescue service with.”
“There’s no service in the middle of the woods,” Harmony said, but Ezra could tell she knew it was a weak argument.
“Sometimes there is. And even if there isn’t, again, eventually someone will find you.”
“And if they don’t…” Damien whistled as he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders and leaving the second half of his sentence to their imaginations, though it wasn’t very difficult to imagine.
Harmony groaned, placing her hands on her cheeks. “You guys are the worst.”
“That sounds like a forfeit,” Ezra said, and Harmony only huffed in response. “I win.”
“It’s not much of a win,” Ren said, the first words she’d spoken in quite some time. She and Ember were trailing slightly behind the humans, Ember walking in the wake of Ren's tail as it pulled through the sand. “This wasn’t very much of an argument so much as a discussion.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ezra said, putting his hands up behind his head. “I still won.”
“I was on your side too, you know,” Damien said, leaning forward slightly to furrow his brow at Ezra. “You’re not the only one who won.”
Ezra lowered an arm to wave his hand around flippantly. “Yeah, but I was definitely leading the charge,” he said. “You didn’t contribute very much of your own besides telling Harmony she’s going to die.”
“That’s not at all what I said,” Damien said at the same time as Harmony groaned again, and Ezra laughed.
The fact they were even able to talk like this was a win in Ezra’s books. He vividly remembered, just as he was sure everyone else did, how abrasive Damien had been when Harmony had had her breakdown last week, and how Harmony had avoided him for days afterwards.
She’d avoided mostly everyone for days afterwards, actually, but that wasn’t the point.
Ezra knew he himself hadn’t exactly been wholly understanding, but Damien had been a dick to Harmony even afterwards. It had taken a few days for it to feel like he’d gotten over it, and even then…
…It was just good that they had all mostly put it behind them.
Mostly.
Damien had said they were set to reach the pier today, sometime around noon. They’d only been walking for around half an hour; it was still early, so they had a few hours ahead of them, but the fact that they had finally made it to the pier (almost) had given everyone a huge energy boost. They wanted to get there as soon as possible. Eat real food and sleep on a real bed and see Digimon that weren’t actively trying to kill them.
Ezra had actually done a bit of thinking over the past few days. Alex had brought up a good point last week when he’d said that their missing piece might not be on File Island. What if they weren’t? What then? Did they come back to Server to look for them? Did they hope that the missing piece would go to File Island to look for them?
They couldn’t worry about it too much right now. Bumble had been right; they’d already made plans. It was too late to change them now. They just had to keep going and hope that they’d find everyone easily enough.
Ezra had the feeling it would be anything but easy.
As the sun reached its peak in the sky, the group reached the edge of Northern Pier.
They had seen it from a distance almost as soon as it had come into view around half an hour ago. They’d known what it was the moment they saw it, and to say that they’d gotten a spring in their step upon seeing it would be an understatement. They actually picked up their pace, the first time in quite a while they’d been excited to walk. A trudge turned into a trek just as quickly and easily as that. It was amazing how little it took to motivate them.
From a distance, it had seemed tiny. A quaint little oceanside village, with exactly one ferry they could see from their viewpoint. They’d expected it to be small; maybe one or two restaurants, a couple shops, a dozen or so houses. Not much in the way of either population or popularity.
Turns out they were very wrong.
It was the size of Mesa Mainframe - perhaps even bigger if they were to count the stretch of beach that was just as populated as what they could see of the city itself. Along that beach were strewn what looked to be volleyball and soccer nets (Digimon had sports?); closer to the town itself were evenly-spaced picnic tables, most of which were occupied by Digimon enjoying their meals. Any Digimon along the beach that wasn’t at a table was either playing at one of the sports sets, strolling along the beach, or swimming in the ocean.
Further down the beach was a line of short piers, most of which had a few small boats docked up against them. If Ezra squinted, he could see a much longer, much larger pier farther in the distance, which hosted the ferry they had seen as they’d approached. As he looked, he saw a small green and orange Digimon jump down from one of the shorter piers into a boat.
The town itself started not far from the picnic tables along the beach. The stone foundation for the city was built right into the sand, separated by a thin curb and extending so far inland and so far down the beach that Ezra couldn’t see where it ended. The buildings closest to the beach seemed to all be shops and restaurants and other services; most of the restaurants had some small tables out front. He couldn’t see much past the first row of buildings, but in the distance, the ground seemed to stretch into a hill, with what Ezra assumed to be houses built on the higher ground.
It really was a city.
And all around them, Digimon were going about their days, paying barely a care in the world to what the group was doing.
“Well, we’re here,” Moxie said from the front of the group.
They didn’t need much more introduction than that.
They headed deeper into the town, leaving the beach behind and stepping onto the stone pavement properly. It was honestly jarring to step onto a solid surface for the first time in a week after being so used to sand shifting and sliding under their feet. It took a couple seconds for everyone to fully adjust to the sensation, but they recovered quickly and got a move on as soon as they were all ready.
“Where are we going?” Miguel asked Moxie.
She took a moment to reply, turning to look at the first building they passed, a shop with dull blue walls. Ezra followed her gaze, spotting the sign hanging just above the door, reading out something along the lines of “SALOY” or “FALON” in Digicode. …He still hadn’t memorized the alphabet yet.
“We’re going to get tickets for the ferry first,” Moxie said, dragging Ezra’s attention back to her. “Just so they don’t sell out.”
“Do they usually?” Castor asked.
Moxie shook her head. “No, but it can’t hurt to be safe. Plus, this way, we won’t have to worry about scrambling to buy them last minute.”
Fair enough. The group kept walking, following Moxie and Pop as they led the way, heading in the direction Ezra assumed to be leading them to the large pier. Moxie seemed to know her way around this city fairly well - too well for someone who would have only been here for a day if they were just here for the ferry. She knew which streets to follow and which buildings marked which road to turn down. Ezra caught her and Pop smiling at another shop they passed, pink and orange stripes decorating the walls, and even Damien and Bumble seemed to recognize it. They knew this city.
How long had they stayed in this town before they’d moved to their house on the Mainframe?
As they walked, Digimon of all kinds passed by them, going about their lives as normal. Most of them didn’t seem interested in the group, sparing barely more than a glance at them, but a few stopped to stare at them. They tried to ignore it, though Ezra couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched after he noticed a few different Digimon’s eyes following them.
Eventually they reached the ticket booths, located just outside the large building that almost seemed to frame the ferry itself, floating in the water just visible in the distance. Moxie led the group to one of the booths, Damien and Bumble hurrying to catch up to her.
The Digimon behind the desk blinked at the group when it realized they were there. It was a large blue dog - Ezra guessed champion level by the size - with a ruff of white fur around its neck, two long scarf tendrils trailing from the fur. The ends of the scarves were shaped like hands, and apparently functioned as such, as one of the hands reached down behind the desk to grab a pair of glasses and place them on her nose.
“Hello,” she said, inching closer.
“Hi,” Moxie said, clasping her hands together. “I’d like to purchase, uh -” She turned around to assess the group, her mouth slightly agape as she counted them all under her breath. “Sixteen ferry tickets for this evening, please.”
One of the Digimon’s eyebrows arched. “Sixteen?”
“There’s sixteen of us,” Moxie said, sounding a little hesitant. “So yes.”
The Digimon’s scarf hand reached down again, pulling out a few sheets of paper that all looked like they had seen much better days. She placed them on the desk, spreading them out as Moxie leaned closer.
“These are the terms and agreements,” the Digimon said. “Make sure you and your group read them over closely. By purchasing a ticket you agree to all of the listed terms.” Suddenly the Digimon frowned curiously, tilting her head. “You look a bit familiar. Have you sailed with us before?”
“Oh,” Moxie said, as Pop reached down to grab the papers and pass them out amongst the group. “Yes, my brother and I and our partners have been here before. It was a few months ago.”
Ezra’s brow furrowed as he was handed one of the papers. Printed in black ink were lines and lines of Digicode, looking very professional and very important and very very unreadable. He could make out a couple different words - “ferry”, for one, and “agree” - but for the most part, it was entirely illegible.
“Um,” Ezra said, raising a hand to get the Digimon’s attention. She turned to look at him, and he stepped forward, coming up to stand beside Moxie. “I can’t read this.”
“Oh, right,” Moxie mumbled, lifting the paper out of his hands. “Uh.”
Damien, on the other side of Moxie, reached a hand over to push her back slightly so he could look at Ezra. “Don’t be a dick to anyone on the ferry and don’t shove anyone off into the water and you’re good.”
“If you miss the ferry, it’s your own fault and there’s no refunds,” Pop added, turning to face the rest of the group as they turned their attention to her as well. “The ride is a few hours long, so they serve a complimentary meal, but you can pay extra for snacks.”
“The gate remains open for half an hour after opening time,” the Digimon behind the counter continued. “The ferry departs five minutes after the gates close. The ferry will not wait for you if you are late, so be sure to plan accordingly.” One of the Digimon’s hands reached forward again, plucking the paper out of Moxie’s fingers, and the rest of the group took this as their signal to pass the remaining papers forward.
Once the Digimon had collected them all, she placed them back behind the desk and pulled out a different sheet of paper and a pen, sliding them forward across the counter. “Please sign here,” she said, indicating a dotted line at the bottom of the page.
Moxie signed the paper while Damien paid for the tickets, and soon enough, each member of the group was a proud owner of one ferry ticket each. Ember tugged on Ezra’s pant leg, then held his ticket up to him once he looked down at him. Ezra placed both his and Ember’s tickets in his jacket pocket, then turned to face the Digimon in the booth as she spoke again.
“Thank you for sailing with Northern Pier,” she said, finally smiling at the group. “I must say, I wasn’t really expecting there to be more humans here so soon. It’s such a rare occasion that we see any in the Digital World.”
…
What?
“Excuse me?” Ezra said, unable to hide the squeak in his voice.
More humans?
He felt like he’d been thrown in a bottomless pit - that weird falling feeling in his chest wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to him, but it still made him nauseous.
There were other humans here?
The Digimon blinked. “Yes, a human arrived in town just this morning. They looked a bit lost, honestly.”
“Where did you last see them?” Damien said, stepping forward and placing his hands on the counter firmly.
“We’re looking for another human,” Alex explained when the Digimon leaned back slightly, looking nervous. “Sort of? It’s complicated. We’d like to see them.”
“I believe they were a bit further north, along the beach,” the Digimon said, nodding her head in the direction. “They shouldn’t have gone very far.”
“Thank you,” Pop said as Moxie turned around to start ushering everyone away.
“Of course,” the Digimon said, lifting one scarf-hand to wave goodbye as the group departed. “I hope you can find them.”
They waited until they were far out of earshot, walking down the road just outside the ferry building, to say anything, and thank god they did.
“There’s another human here?” Ryan practically shouted, digging his fingers into his hair and turning his face up to the sky. “Another human? Here? Why? Why the hell -”
“Well,” Harmony said, placing her hands together against her chest and smiling widely, elbowing Ryan hard enough that he forgot what he was yelling about to rub a hand against the impact wound. “Maybe they’re our missing piece.”
“This feels too convenient,” Castor mumbled, tugging on his cloak, and Ezra felt that drop in his chest again.
Alex tilted his head down at him. “Convenient?”
“Yeah,” Castor said. “Why is it that the first town we come across since leaving Piximon is the one with our ‘missing piece’? The first proper civilization we’ve seen in two weeks, and we find them just like that?” He shook his head, his gaze falling to the stone beneath his feet.
“Maybe we’re finding them this quickly because it’s a proper civilization,” Ezra said, curling a finger over his mouth. It did seem a little convenient, but… “They’ve probably been out in the wilderness for who knows how long. It would make sense that they’d want to head to the closest town they can find.”
Castor gave him a flat stare. “So they went off to find help instead of staying put, huh.”
“Can you let it go already,” Ezra hissed, moving his hand to cover his face, and Castor laughed.
“I say we should find this human before we start jumpin’ to conclusions about anything,” Azure said, a few steps behind Ezra, and Ko nodded his assent. “Won’t do us any good to speculate if we don’t even know who they are or why they’re here.”
“The restaurants along the northern beach aren’t too far,” Pop said from the front of the group, twisting around on Moxie’s shoulder to face the rest of the group. “It shouldn’t take long to get there.”
Down at his feet, Ember hummed to himself quietly, and Ezra tilted his head down at him. He looked deep in thought, fist propped against his cheek and brow furrowed, but didn’t say anything.
“What’s up?” Ezra said, and Ember started, looking up at him once he had smoothed himself out.
“Nothing really,” he admitted, looking forward again. “I think Castor’s right, but… you are too. I mean, I hope it’s them, but it is weird, you know?”
“Yeah,” Ezra said, sighing. “I know.”
It was weird, but they didn’t know if this was their missing piece. They could be completely unrelated to the group. Someone who… had something else to do, maybe? Maybe they’d clicked on a spam link too? Maybe they’d ended up here by accident.
…The more scenarios he came up with, the more ridiculous they sounded.
What else would a human be doing in the Digital World?
They talked a bit more here and there along the way, throwing around theories and ideas and hopes and expectations. They really had no idea what this human would be like, or why they were here, or how they’d gotten here. How had they not heard about them before now? Had they come from File Island, or were they headed there as well?
There were too many questions Ezra had. It was starting to make his brain hurt.
It felt a little unreal, honestly.
The group continued onwards, conversation eventually dying out as they ran out of things worth saying. They’d already gone over all the possibilities. Azure was right - it wouldn’t do them any good to speculate.
But it didn’t stop him from thinking.
It wasn’t even particularly coherent thoughts. He just couldn’t get it off of his mind, no matter how hard he tried, and by god was he trying. He still couldn’t get over the feeling in his stomach, either.
He just had to wait it out.
It didn’t take long to reach the stretch of buildings along the north beach. The ferry building was far behind them by the time they stepped into the small plaza just in front of the closest restaurant. They made their way around the fountain in the center and the benches scattered around it, cutting across a square of grass to reach the buildings just a bit quicker.
They’d gotten a few more stares as they’d walked. There’d been whispers, Digimon speaking in hushed tones as they passed by, obviously talking about them. The looks in their eyes were proof enough.
It didn’t really matter. Ezra had gotten used to it by this point, even with how infrequently they were in proper settlements.
As they approached the first of the buildings, the falling in Ezra’s chest turned into more of a fluttering, like something was desperately trying to escape the confines of his ribcage. He tried to shove it back down, turn it into the feeling he was more familiar with, but it was futile.
He chose to ignore it instead, even though he had never been good at ignoring unwanted feelings.
The pace slowed as they reached the first shop - a bookstore, Ezra was sure of it. He could read the sign over the door, absolutely. (He could also see shelves lined with books inside the large window on the front wall, but shh.)
They passed more and more shops and businesses, looking inside each of them when they could, searching for any sign of the human. Moxie and Pop stopped a few Digimon here and there, asking if they knew where the other human was, but they all just said that they were somewhere nearby. Somewhere around here; that was where they’d last been spotted.
And then, just when all hope seemed lost, and they were about to turn around and look somewhere else, Miguel pointed out, in the distance, a bench on the opposite side of the road, facing the beach just a few feet in front of it. Ezra didn’t think much of it at first - it was just a bench, nothing much to it - but as the group looked closer, trying to see what had caught his eye, they saw it: a human, sitting next to a small Digimon, looking down at what Ezra could only assume was their phone.
…You know, even from a distance, they looked a little familiar.
Instantly the group changed their trajectory, heading towards them as quickly as they could without looking suspicious or creepy. The fluttering in Ezra’s chest had long ago turned into a pounding, but now it was nearly suffocating, drowning out all other rational thought, for whatever reason he didn’t know.
“Are you kidding me,” Alex said under his breath as they drew closer, close enough to actually see the human, see their face and what they were looking at and who they were sitting next to and who they were, and immediately everything made sense to Ezra.
He knew the long blonde hair and bunny ear headband had been familiar. He’d known the too-quick beats of his heart and the sudden dryness in his throat had been indicative of something. He hadn’t known what, but he’d known they’d meant something, and now he knew what they meant, and he knew what it meant.
Something down at his feet bumped into him, but he barely registered it. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the back of her head, at the spot where the end of her headband disappeared beneath locks of golden hair, near-seamlessly transitioning into them. She’d always done that, covering the band with her hair to try to make it look like the rabbit ears were actually growing out of her head. Ezra had teased her about it a couple of times when she was younger, finding it silly that she expected anyone to think she actually had bunny ears when she so obviously didn’t.
He’d never really understood why she’d always been so distraught about it, and to this day he still didn’t, but he’d stopped teasing her a long time ago.
He’d stopped teasing her about a lot of things a long time ago.
It felt distant to think about.
“Anna?”
Everything felt distant, really. His own body. His voice. Anna, sitting right in front of him, turning around to look at him, her own blue eyes boring into his. She felt miles away, across the ocean, on the other side of the world.
Someone said something. He wasn’t sure who; he couldn’t really hear it. It wasn’t Anna - her mouth didn’t move, and her eyes were still locked onto Ezra’s just as his were on hers.
Quickly something flashed across her face, but it disappeared before Ezra could discern what it was. She looked away, craning her neck to look at something or someone more directly behind her, and it was enough to snap Ezra out of his trance, finally bringing him back to the present.
The pounding in his chest was gone by the time he came to.
It was quickly replaced by countless questions flooding his mind, crowding into his brain as tightly as they could. How did Anna get here? How long had she been here? As long as he had? Shorter? How were their parents doing? Were they worried about him? Was she?
…Why wasn’t she worried about him?
“Anna,” he said again, and she looked back at him, and only then did he realize he’d cut her off in the middle of her saying something. He hadn’t even heard it.
“Huh?” Ember said, looking up at Ezra quizzically. “Is this your sister?”
It was. It was his sister, sitting right in front of him, in the Digital World. What was she doing here?
He scrambled for a question, trying to grab one of the ones crammed in his head. It felt… difficult to hold onto them, like they were trying to slip away, or like something was pulling them out of his grasp. “Why are you here?”
Best to start simple, he supposed.
“I just said it,” she said, and he nearly collapsed upon hearing her voice for the first time in a month. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m here.” Her eyebrows pinched together quickly. “And… why are you here?”
Where to begin with that.
“How long have you been here,” Ezra said instead, dodging her question entirely, and he saw the annoyance on her face from being ignored. He’d been expecting it.
“About a week,” she said, swinging her legs over to face him properly as, around him, the rest of the group adjusted their positions slightly to face her. From the other side of Anna, the Digimon she’d been sitting with peeked its head around to blink big violet eyes up at Ezra, but he didn’t even look over at it. “Probably less. I haven’t really been -” She broke off, looking to the side for a moment. “Five days.”
She’d been here for five days all alone. Five days. And they’d already been here for a month at that point.
Why wasn’t she worried? Surprised? Relieved to see him the way he was to see her, to hear her voice and see those strange looks in her eyes she always had whenever she spoke?
“I don’t know,” Anna said, replying to someone who had asked something like how she had even gotten here. She frowned. “Well. I do. I sent a text message to someone and then I was just here.”
“You sent a text message?” Ezra said, interrupting her again. “To who?”
“Someone,” she said, shrugging. “I don’t know. They texted me and I replied and then I was here. Not here,” she added, gesturing around the area. “I ended up in a forest. I didn’t know what to do, so I just started walking. I think I headed north.”
Ezra sensed Castor’s eyes searing into the back of his head, but he didn’t look at him.
“I found Bunny the first day I was here,” Anna went on, and Ezra didn’t even register that she was talking about the Digimon next to her until she reached over to pick it up and place it on her lap. “She said she was looking for me.”
It was a small white rabbit, around the size of Ember, with four ginormous purple-tipped ears that flicked back as she looked up at Ezra again. An antenna sprouted from her forehead and drooped over her face, just above the crescent moon marking that matched those on her chest and paws and ears. She seemed to have no feet, her body transitioning into a sort of dress, but as she moved Ezra saw the tip of a paw underneath it as she shifted in Anna’s lap. Across her chest was looped a pale yellow ribbon, holding a circular moon pendant in place on her stomach.
Ezra blinked down at her and she quickly looked away.
“Bunny?” he heard Alex say from beside him, and he, Anna, and the Digimon all turned to look at him. “You named it Bunny?”
“She’s not an it,” Anna said, pulling the Digimon - Bunny - closer. “She’s a Lunamon. Her name is Bunny and she’s my friend.”
“I’m going to choose to ignore the fact you named her the exact nickname I’ve always called you,” Alex said, and Anna smiled lightly for a split second. “Who is she? What’s her deal?”
Anna rolled her eyes. “I told you, she’s my friend.”
“Can I see your phone?” Ezra said, holding his hand out to her.
Anna frowned up at him. “Why? It doesn’t work. I already tried.”
“I know, it’s just -” Ezra curled his hand into a fist, retracting it. “Our phones do something weird here, and I wanted to see -”
“You got one of these things?” Damien cut in, holding his digivice up and wiggling it around.
Anna blinked. “No. What is that?”
Great. So she didn’t have a digivice. Hopefully that meant -
“I do have this weird app, though,” she said, reaching into the pocket of her skirt and pulling her phone out, flicking it on and scrolling to the last page to reveal the exact app that Ezra had so desperately hoped she wouldn’t have.
He buried his face in his hands and sank to his knees unceremoniously.
Around him, some of the others started to speak, presumably to Anna and Bunny, but he couldn’t make out exact words over the roaring in his ears. The only thing keeping him grounded was him literally being grounded, the feeling of his knees on the stone beneath him and the bench he was leaning against - he guessed he’d leant up against it when he knelt down - and his hands on his face and, then, Ember’s paws on his cheeks.
Ezra lowered his hands to look into Ember’s concerned eyes.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, and Ezra’s shoulders slumped. He quickly looked up at Anna, but she wasn’t paying attention to him, instead talking to Moxie and Pop or someone else, Ezra wasn’t sure.
“I think so,” Ezra said, his voice too loud for his liking, even over the blood rushing in his ears that still hadn’t subsided. “Maybe. I can’t… I wasn’t expecting it to be Anna.”
Anna had actually been the last person on his mind when he’d wondered about who the human would be. He hadn’t expected it would be anyone they’d know, but the thought had crossed his mind - but even then, it hadn’t been Anna -
If it was Anna, and if she had Bunny, and if she had the digivice app, and if she was here in the Digital World…
She was their missing piece.
She was part of their group and she had to come with them and save the world instead of staying at home where she would be safe and happy and wouldn’t have to go through anything more than she already had -
“Hey,” another voice said, and Ezra looked up to see Alex reaching a hand down to him.
He became aware that everyone was looking at him, and that his heart rate and breathing had quickened exponentially, and he tried his best to bring them both down to a more steady pace. He shook his head out, grabbing Alex’s hand and standing back up, trying to avoid Anna’s gaze.
“We’re going to go get lunch together,” Alex said, brushing some sand off of Ezra’s shirt. “Anna and Bunny don’t have any money, so they haven’t been able to get anything to eat. We’ll catch up with them more there.”
Ezra nodded, unable to find words.
They headed out to find a restaurant, Ember and Alex staying next to Ezra, and Ezra unable to tear his eyes off of the back of Anna’s head a few feet in front of him. He was hoping, however desperately, that this was all a dream and that Anna wasn’t really here. Maybe they were still back on the coast and they hadn’t reached the town yet.
It wasn’t true. He knew this.
They found a restaurant eventually, having to divide up among different tables due to the sheer size of their ever-growing group. Castor, Alex, and Pop took it upon themselves to explain to Anna and Bunny what they had been through, what they were here for, what they were dealing with. Everything from landing in the forest near Grey Manor, to finding Asuramon and Piximon, to figuring out more about what the white-eyed Digimon really were, to where they were now. That they were looking for someone - multiple someones - and that they were part of them. That they had to save the world.
Ezra grit his teeth through it all, refusing to look anyone in the eye, but he managed to refrain from saying anything.
He couldn’t bring himself to eat when their food arrived. He tried, sure, but he just couldn’t. It didn’t matter how much he’d been looking forward to a proper meal.
“You doing okay?” Alex said to him quietly when everyone had finished and their waiter, a small colorful plant digimon, had come to take their plates away. Alex leaned across the table. “You didn’t eat much,” he continued when Ezra said nothing, and Ezra felt that he was being a bit generous with his description there. “We could probably take that to go.”
“Yeah, we should,” Ezra said after a moment of hesitance, and Alex nodded, gesturing to their waiter to ask for a box. Ezra leaned back in his chair, fidgeting with his hands.
Anna hadn’t said much during the talk - Bunny hadn’t said anything at all - just asked questions here and there, getting clarification on some of the parts she was confused about. She didn’t seem scared of the manic Digimon at all. Ezra supposed it was much different to actually face one than to simply hear about them. The only thing that really bothered her was the description of the archangel Digimon that the manic Digimon served. He didn’t know why.
She didn’t seem to fully grasp the whole “saving the world” thing, though. Which was fine. She wasn’t going to need to understand it, because she wasn’t going to come with them.
She’d been excited about it, though, and it hurt Ezra’s heart a little.
They left soon after, not wanting to take up space at the restaurant longer than they needed to, especially with how displeased some of the staff seemed at the size of their group (which Ezra thought was ridiculous, but he didn’t say anything). The ferry didn’t leave till evening, and they didn’t have anywhere else to be at the moment, so they took to the streets, wanting to check out the rest of the city and stock up on supplies before they had to leave.
Speaking of.
“Oh right, I suppose we’re going to need some more tickets,” Damien said after the previous conversation - something about comparing Northern Pier to a city Harmony had been to as a kid, Ezra hadn’t really been paying attention - died down. “Bumble and I can go get those, you all should keep going.”
“What?” Ezra said, perking up finally.
Damien looked at him strangely. “Tickets for the ferry. For Anna and Bunny. We didn’t get tickets for them earlier, they’re going to need them when we -”
“No they won’t,” Ezra said, feeling the panic rising in his throat and trying to keep his voice steady. He shook his head, trying to shove it down, but he couldn’t. It just kept building up.
Anna could not come with them. Ezra wouldn’t allow it. He knew that she was going to hate him for it, but he didn’t care. He’d done enough thinking over the past few years about how to prevent anything bad from happening to her and enough worrying about what would happen if he failed to protect her to let this happen.
She was just going to get hurt. Alex and Azure and Harmony and Ezra himself had all already come so close to dying, just an inch away from an injury too severe to recover from, a brush too close to death. It would happen to all of them eventually. There was no way around it: eventually, every single one of them, the Digimon included, would have that near-death moment, and that meant that if Anna was part of their group, she would too.
There was such a real, potent, tangible possibility that, one day, one of them would die. Every morning when Ezra woke up he was faced with this reality, and every morning he shoved it to the back of his mind, but it always crept back to the front by the time he laid down to go to sleep at night.
He couldn’t let Anna go through that. He couldn’t let her go through with this knowing that it was possible that it would be her that died.
He couldn’t live with that.
“You’re not coming with us,” he said, turning to Anna, and the moment he looked in her eyes he saw her face fall, arms tightening around Bunny clutched close to her chest.
“What?” she said, voice wavering.
He swallowed a growing lump in his throat. “It’s too dangerous. I can’t let you come with us.” He sensed Ember looking up at him, but did not take his eyes off of Anna.
“That’s not fair,” she said, that familiar petulant tone creeping into her voice and conflicting entirely with the defiance and rage in her gaze. “You said I’m a part of your group! You said you were looking for me! Why can’t I come?”
“I told you, it’s too dangerous.” She wasn’t understanding. She never understood. Even when she knew he was just trying to protect her, she never understood him. “You’re going to get hurt.”
“I don’t care!” she exclaimed, stomping her foot. “You don’t get to get my hopes up like that and then tell me nevermind! I don’t care that it’s dangerous, I have Bunny with me, I have you guys!” She shook her head out ferociously, glaring at him with a long-practiced fervor. “You’d do more good protecting me by watching over me instead of leaving me here in this town all on my own!”
“Ezra,” he heard Ember say, and Ezra let loose a heavy breath. They were making a scene; he could feel the rest of the group’s eyes on him and Anna.
“I’m not going to leave you here,” he said, and Anna rolled her eyes.
“Then what are you going to do with me? You can’t send me home. I’m stuck here just like you are.” She paused for a second, and then her eyes lit up. “I’d be in more danger if you left me here than if you took me with you. I’ll only have Bunny with me here. If I go with you -”
“You’re not coming with us,” Ezra said forcefully, and all the fight drained out of Anna’s face.
She scrunched her face up, squeezing Bunny tightly for a moment. For a moment, it seemed like she was trying to come up with something else to say, to convince him to let her come with them or to make another scathing comment - he even saw the twitch of her mouth that always signified that she’d thought of something - but all she did was glower more fiercely at Ezra and then, too quickly for him to even register what was going on, turn around and run away.
Ezra stared, mouth agape, at the empty spot where she had just stood, and then he hissed to himself and chased after her.
He didn’t know if anyone else was following him. He couldn’t risk turning around to look, what with how difficult it was to keep an eye on Anna as she twisted through the streets, brushing past Digimon and turning down any corners or alleyways she came across. He couldn’t focus on anything except the back of her head, the ears on her headband bobbing back and forth as she ran faster than Ezra had ever seen her run before.
As they ran, Digimon on the streets turned to stare at them in confusion and surprise and irritation, but Ezra paid no mind to any of them, and neither did Anna. She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t have a destination in mind. She was just running for the sake of running. Running to get away from Ezra.
Running to escape him.
“Ezra!”
Ember’s voice came as a surprise from behind Ezra, and he faltered. It was just a moment, but it was enough for him to trip over a crack in the sidewalk, flailing his arms to keep himself upright as he began to fall. It worked, and he remained standing, but by the time he looked back up to see where Anna was -
She was already out of sight.
“Goddamnit,” he mumbled, digging his fingers into his hair and squeezing his eyes shut.
She’d gotten away. It was anyone’s guess as to where she could be by this point.
It was also anyone’s guess as to where Ezra himself was at that point. His arms fell to his side as he looked around at the buildings along the street he’d ended up on.
…He didn’t recognize any of them.
He didn’t have the whole town memorized, but he was certain that if they were near any of the shops they’d walked by earlier, he would have recognized them. Where was the SALOY/FALON? The bookstore? The restaurant they’d eaten at?
He realized then, looking over his shoulder down at Ember, hunched over and breathing deeply as he recovered from his own run, that he’d been chasing Anna for much longer than he’d thought.
“Did we get lost?” Ember said, wiping his arm across his nose and straightening up, voicing exactly Ezra’s concerns.
“Yeah,” he said.
Ember sighed. “The one thing we weren’t supposed to do,” he said mournfully, shaking his head, “and it’s the one thing we did.”
Ezra sank to the ground, crossing his legs and leaning up against the side of the building. Ember came over to sit beside him, resting his chin in his paws and sighing.
“I didn’t expect her to run,” Ezra mumbled, wrapping his arms around his legs. “I knew she wouldn’t take it well, but… I wasn’t expecting this.”
“…Um,” Ember said, rubbing the back of his head nervously. “Before I chased you I told everyone else to not follow us. I thought we would catch her and then we could come back. …So they’re not going to come look for us.”
“So we really are lost,” Ezra said, and Ember smiled sheepishly.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. We’ll… go find her, and then we’ll head back.”
“Should we?”
Ezra frowned, looking over at Ember. “What?”
“I mean.” Ember kicked his feet against the ground and shrugged. “What if she just needs some time?”
“She’s lost in the city,” Ezra said, and Ember tilted his head.
“The city’s safe. She’ll be okay. I think she needs some time alone, you know?”
Ezra shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
Ember sighed. “She’s had a lot to process today. If you told me that you were here to save the world from some evil guy, and that I had to join you, but then you told me that I couldn’t come with you because it’s too dangerous, I’d be upset too.”
“You wouldn’t be glad?” Ezra asked.
“No. Because I’d get excited about saving the world!” He pumped his fists in the air, grinning, before calming back down. “And then I would be sad that you think I can’t handle myself.”
“That’s not what it is,” Ezra protested, already feeling the argument rising. It wasn’t that he thought Anna couldn’t handle herself. It was just…
…What was it?
“I think you need to let her do it,” Ember continued. “I mean… she has Bunny. She has her digivice - or, almost. She’s been chosen for this just like you have.”
Had she really? Or had this world made a mistake? Why would it have chosen an eleven year old girl to save it?
Asuramon had told them that the past humans had been young, younger than this current group. Didn’t that mean that whatever had chosen them had learned from its mistakes? That it knew that having children save it was a stupid idea?
(But weren’t Ezra and the others still children, too?)
He shook his head out, sweeping away the piling thoughts. “But she’s - she’s a kid. She’s so young. Can she even do this?”
“Is this a question of ‘can she’, or ‘will you let her’?”
Ember was getting quick with his responses. Ezra’s lip quirked into a smile for a moment, before he remembered what they were discussing.
“…I think I have a right to be worried about it.”
Ember spread his paws out. “Of course you do! Of course you can be worried about her! Just as much as I’m sure your parents are worried about you!”
Were they? Or did they not care?
“That’s - that’s different,” Ezra said, trying to ignore that. “I’m not a child. Anna is.”
“She’s no more a child than I am.”
Ezra stared at Ember, into his bright amber eyes and the fire dancing within, deep and ardent. The fire that he’d seen back when they’d first met in the village that night, when he was no more than a Frimon.
He’d been so small and unassuming. Ezra hadn’t known then what it was that had drawn him to Ember. What about that small ball of fluff had drawn him in so closely that he’d started calling him his, long before he’d even known they were partners?
He knew now what it was, of course. It was the fire. Fitting, really.
“What are you talking about?”
Ember smiled somberly. “I’m a kid just like her, Ezra. You know this.”
A weight settled in Ezra’s chest, heavy and constrictive, but he managed to get words out even around it. “Well, yeah, but…”
“I was a kid that night and I’m still a kid now. Me evolving doesn’t mean anything when I’m no older for it.”
Ezra’s fingers tightened into fists. “Ember, it’s so much different with you -” He knew, even as he said it, that it wasn’t. He was just trying to defend himself. He knew Ember was right.
“It’s not,” Ember said. Ezra knew. “You know how young I am compared to the other Digimon. Sure, I evolved, but it wasn’t a natural evolution. It was you and your ambition -” he reached a paw out to tap against where Ezra’s heart rested in his chest “- which helped unlock the potential in me. That was why I evolved.” He tilted his head up at him. “I wanted to protect you, because you protected me. And I couldn’t do that as I was. I had to evolve. It wasn’t that I was ready. It was that I needed to.”
It was true, wasn’t it? Ember had only evolved because of Ezra. The digivice had been proof enough of that, even before they knew what it meant. Ember was still a kid.
Ezra had known this, but hearing Ember say it out loud and being faced with it directly was much, much different.
“And maybe Anna isn’t ready either,” Ember went on. “That’s fine. She’s a kid and you’re worried about her. I get that. But you can’t stop her from doing this, especially not with how much she wants to. How much she needs to.”
There were words clawing at the back of Ezra’s throat, threatening to tear their way out of his mouth, and he knew if he allowed them to, he would regret it. But he couldn’t say nothing. He had to let them out. He had to put his thoughts into words. He had to say something.
“Ember -”
He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Ember was right, he knew, he knew, but even so, it was different with Anna.
Wasn’t he right to want to protect her? To keep her safe and happy and loved forever? He couldn’t do that here in the Digital World; here, where he already had to worry about Ember and Alex and everyone else and himself and the whole wide world. He had to save the world. He couldn’t risk Anna.
All he’d ever wanted was to protect her, ever since she’d grabbed his arm, no more than five years old at the time, when he’d tried to step away from her. She’d looked him straight in the eyes, her own bubbling with tears, and begged him to stay. I need you, she’d said. Please stay.
When their parents had left her room a short while later, she’d pulled him closer and told him that he was the only one she trusted.
He still didn’t know what exactly had happened. He’d tried to ask her, tried to ask their parents, tried to figure it out on his own with the precious few context clues and glimmerings of allusions he’d picked up on from his parents and the doctors and therapists. Anna had refused to tell him. She’d said it didn’t matter, even when he told her it was important if it had affected her this deeply.
She hadn’t budged, and eventually he’d given up. All that mattered was that she needed him. All that mattered was that he was going to make sure she never felt that way again, that she would never be in danger, that she would always be safe.
And he couldn’t do that here.
“I can’t,” he said, lifting his hands to his face. “I can’t. I can’t -”
Ember cut him off, moving to stand in front of him, placing his paws on his cheeks for the second time that day. Ezra’s hands fell to his lap, and he blinked a few times, trying to clear whatever was starting to fog his vision.
Ember smiled. “If you can trust me enough to save the world, you can trust Anna and Bunny too.”
Ember didn’t know Anna - not really, not personally. Ezra had told him all about her, late at night away from the others when neither of them could fall asleep. How she always wore those bunny ears even when she wasn’t supposed to, how she’d had a friend take her to get her ears pierced when she was nine because their parents wouldn’t let her, how she’d always had a fascination with ghosts and shadows and the stars, how she always seemed to be lost in her own mind even when she was speaking directly to him.
Ember barely even knew her and yet he was fighting for her in a way Ezra didn’t think he himself was capable of.
Ezra closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. Ember stayed where he stood, still holding him, and after a few moments Ezra reached his hands up to pull him closer into a hug.
They stayed like that for a while, just holding each other, until Ezra let go and Ember stepped back. Ember smiled at him again, softer this time, and Ezra managed to return it.
Maybe he was right. He was just as young as Anna, and yet he was fighting alongside everyone else as if there wasn’t any difference, and Ezra was fine with that (or as fine as he could be with his best friend fighting mindless monsters).
He did trust Ember. He trusted everyone. Why couldn’t he trust Anna?
In time, he knew he would, if he were to give her the chance to prove herself. She always had. It was just so scary, the thought of her out there with them, putting herself in danger just as he and everyone else did.
He knew he had to let her, but it didn’t quell the fear.
“Let’s go look for her,” Ezra said, standing up. Ember nodded, clenching his fists and turning down the street in the direction Anna had disappeared in.
They headed off, Ezra trying to keep his mind solely on finding Anna. He hoped that she and Bunny hadn’t gone far or gotten themselves lost, but his hopes weren’t very high. He had no idea where he was in the city; Anna and Bunny certainly wouldn’t know themselves.
They didn’t get far - just barely rounded the corner up ahead - before they ran into a problem.
“There you are.”
A very, very big problem.
Ezra backed up away from the Digimon, almost tripping over Ember as the little lion cub came to stand in front of him. He raised his fists, glaring up at it, as it looked down at the both of them.
Of course it was manic.
It was very tall and mostly humanoid, the only truly animalistic feature being the horned bear mask it wore over the upper half of its face (which seemed to actually act as its face, if the raising of its eyebrows were proof), from under which flowed long white hair. A long indigo jacket, lined with fangs and with holes cut in the back to free its purple bat wings, covered the blue pinstripe suit it wore, the pants of which were tucked into black boots studded with blades to resemble claws. Around its shoulders was draped a length of red fabric, torn and tattered at the ends. Its right hand clutched a small dagger, and its left a giant machine gun, resting against the ground much too casually for Ezra’s comfort.
Ezra took another step back, digging into his pocket for his digivice and lifting it up to the Digimon.
“Astamon. Ultimate level demon man Digimon. It shows cruelty to its enemies and kindness to its friends, and because of that charisma, it is expected to gain a considerable number of followers among Demon Digimon.”
“Interesting,” Astamon said, tapping the edge of the knife along his jaw as if thinking deeply. “I wouldn’t be quite that flattering if I were to describe myself, but I’ll take it.”
Ember growled, his fists bursting into flame, and Astamon tilted his head at him.
“Please,” he said, voice dripping with disdain, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his gun bumping up against his leg. “I’m not interested in fighting.”
“Sorry if we find that hard to believe,” Ezra said, feeling way too confident. “You guys usually aren’t very kind to us.” He didn’t specify who he was talking about, but it was obvious enough.
“I know,” Astamon said. “I won’t lie and say that I’m sorry about that, but if it helps, I mean it when I say I don’t want to fight.”
“…Sure,” Ezra said, exchanging a quick glance with Ember. Astamon noticed and sighed.
“Give me your digivice,” he said, pointing with his knife at where Ezra still gripped it in his hand.
Ezra blanked.
The digivice? First of all, how the hell did Astamon have any idea what that was? He didn’t think that any of the group had ever told any of the manic Digimon about them. Had Astamon been following the group earlier? But Ezra was sure that one of them would have noticed, right?
And secondly, why the hell did Astamon want it? What was he expecting to do with it? Did he just want to look at it?
“No,” Ezra said, because fucking of course no.
Astamon’s mouth curled into a sneer. “I wasn’t asking. Give me the digivice or I’ll kill you.”
“You said you didn’t want to fight,” Ember said as Ezra tried to ignore the way his heart skipped a beat.
“I don’t,” Astamon said. His eyes flicked down to Ember, who straightened up under his gaze. “It won’t be a fight. He’ll be dead and then you won’t be able to evolve without him and you’ll stand no chance against me.”
Wasn’t this guy fun. Ezra took a step back and instantly Astamon took two forward, closer to Ezra, still holding the knife towards him.
“I’m not asking. Give me your digivice.”
Ezra glared. “Why?”
Astamon lunged forward without another word, dropping his gun and grabbing Ezra around the neck with his now-freed hand. He pressed the length of the knife against his throat, tilting his head back to expose it, and Ezra choked on a gasp, struggling against Astamon’s clutches. Ember growled, squaring off against Astamon, but didn’t move otherwise.
“The digivice,” Astamon hissed, his face dangerously close to Ezra’s. Ezra tried to lean back, but Astamon’s hand and the blade at his throat held him in place. “Now.”
Ezra grit his teeth. He was trying to stall for time, but he knew he didn’t have any. Astamon was moments away from slitting his throat - he could already feel a faint trickle of blood running down his neck - and, as it was, Ember stood no chance of fighting back.
What other choice did he have?
Ezra slowly raised the hand he clutched the digivice in, and Astamon let go of him, yanking it out of his grasp. Ezra stumbled backward and Ember immediately jumped in between him and Astamon.
But Astamon wasn’t looking at either of them. He was staring down at the digivice, his brows furrowed as he turned it around in his hands, a look of utter disgust and contempt on his face. It was like he’d completely forgotten Ezra and Ember were even there.
Ezra let a small amount of tension out of his shoulders - cautiously, carefully. Astamon hadn’t left. He could change his mind and attack either of them at any moment.
But he didn’t.
Astamon lowered his arm gently, then let go of the digivice, letting it fall to the ground. It bounced off the pavement a few times, each ricochet causing Ezra to frown more and more deeply. Did he not care anymore -?
Astamon lifted a leg high in the air and Ezra realized, all too late, what he was trying to do.
“No!”
He didn’t have a chance to do anything. He tried - he tried to reach out for the digivice, tried to grab it away, tried to put himself in Astamon’s path instead - but he wasn’t quick enough. In front of him, Ember likewise tried to stop it, but he, too, was too slow.
It all took less than a second.
Astamon brought his foot down onto the digivice with a sickening crunch and Ezra felt his heart freeze in his chest.
He should have expected this. Obviously Astamon didn’t just want to check it out, he wanted to destroy it. He knew, somehow, that the digivice was what allowed Ember to evolve, and he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let him have that power.
What was going to happen now?
Slowly, Astamon took his foot off of it, a devilish grin spread across his face - and it quickly turned into a scowl as he leant down to inspect it more closely. Ezra followed his gaze.
The digivice was entirely unharmed.
It was like nothing had ever happened. There was barely more than a scuff on it; the screen hadn’t even cracked, let alone been scratched. Nothing had happened.
“What,” Astamon growled under his breath, and Ember darted forward, snatched the digivice, and brushed past Astamon as he started to run.
Astamon whipped around with a snarl, and Ezra - without even thinking - ran past him as well, following Ember as he raced down the street. He heard Astamon follow him moments later, shouting something that he couldn’t hear and didn’t care about.
Ember obviously did not know where he was going, as was clear when he turned down another street and ended up on a very busy road, Digimon strolling back and forth along the sidewalk and popping in and out of the businesses along the way. They got out of Ezra and Ember’s way fast when they saw them coming, their eyes widening when they saw Astamon chasing them, but none of them did much more than step aside.
Behind him, Ezra heard Astamon call something out, and then he heard gunshots. He almost fell over from the surprise and fear that shot through his body, but he couldn’t allow himself to trip up - and thankfully Astamon hadn’t hit him or Ember, or that would have been something else entirely.
As they turned down another corner, Ember suddenly slammed to a halt, turning around almost before he’d stopped running to face Ezra. Without a word, Ember threw the digivice directly at him just as Ezra himself came to a stop. Instinctively Ezra reached out to grab it, catching it expertly (a huge surprise, honestly).
Ember nodded at him and went up in an orange glow just as Astamon rounded the corner.
“You,” Astamon growled, and Ember charged at him, the light from his evolution barely having faded away. Ezra turned around to see him barrel directly into his chest, knocking him backwards into a nearby building.
“
“
Astamon spun his knife around in his hand, watching it with a bored expression. “Things weren’t supposed to go this way,” he said, as casually as if he were commenting on the results of a sports game. Further down the street, Ezra could see a few Digimon watching the three of them, looking somewhat nervous but making no move either towards or away from them.
“I don’t know what that was,” he continued, wrapping his fingers around the knife to stop its rotation and then pocketing it. He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I suppose we’ll find out eventually though. Unfortunate, really, but at least I can make up for it.”
Quick as a flash he lifted his machine gun from where it lay propped up against his leg, aiming directly at Ember. “
He pulled the trigger and a barrage of glowing-red bullets shot straight at Ember, who hadn’t had time to get out of the way before Astamon fired. Even as he started to run, visibly gritting his teeth as the bullets left faintly glowing marks on his fur, Astamon followed his path, the gunfire only dying down when the attack itself eventually faded.
Ezra stood rooted to the spot, unable to move without drawing Astamon’s attention to himself, and he wasn’t really in the mood to get shot at. Ember skidded to a stop once he realized the attack had ceased, and wasted no time in rounding on Astamon, his front half bursting into flames as he began to charge.
“
Astamon sidestepped him easily, but Ember quickly altered his course to swing back around and hit him from behind, toppling him over. Astamon hit the asphalt face-first, grunting as he pushed himself up and straightened himself out.
He pulled his knife out of his pocket in one swift movement and ran at Ember, swinging wildly. “
Ember got to his feet, shaking his head out, and then snarled at Astamon, jumping towards him and swiping out with a flaming paw. “
He hit Astamon, but he did not fall, instead shoving Ember away with the end of his gun. Ember braced himself against it, wings flaring out for balance, but Astamon shoved him again and he tumbled away, rolling to a stop just a few feet away from Ezra.
Astamon and Ezra both looked at Ember for a moment, and then each other, their eyes locking. Astamon smiled, stepping towards him even as Ezra tried to back up, and reached out to grab him once more.
He placed the knife on his cheek, just below his eye, and Ezra cried out as he drew a line, blood beginning to drip down from the cut.
“It’s always been so interesting that humans can bleed,” Astamon said. “Fascinating, really.” He pulled the knife away and Ezra raised a hand to his face to wipe away the blood.
Astamon smiled again. “It’s a shame that -”
Whatever he was going to say, he didn’t get to, as he suddenly lurched forward as if hit by something, the mirth slipping off his face just as quickly. Hissing, he whipped around, still holding Ezra, to look at whatever had happened.
Down the road, in the opposite direction that they had come from, stood Anna and Bunny, the latter breathing heavily as if she’d just attacked.
Astamon’s lip curled and he stepped towards them, dragging Ezra along. He narrowed his eyes. “And who are you?”
Anna took a step forward and raised her fists. “Let go of him.”
“We’ve never seen you before,” Astamon said, ignoring her completely. “You must be new. Somehow. Hasn’t the rest of your little group explained anything to you?” He raised his free hand, the one holding the knife, to his temples, pinching them. “Whatever. I don’t have time for this.”
He threw Ezra to the ground, and Ezra coughed as he hit the pavement, propping himself up on his elbows to see Astamon rushing at Bunny. “
She landed with a thud on the other side of the street, and Anna yelped, running toward her. Astamon raised his knife again, tracking her movements, and Ezra scrambled to his feet, prepared to run in if he needed to.
“
Ember came barreling in from the side, knocking Astamon far away from Anna and Bunny. Ezra and Anna both spun around to watch them, Anna holding Bunny close to her chest, as Ember pinned Astamon to the ground.
He slashed out at his face, growling fiercely. “
“Anna,” Ezra said, and she looked over at him, something flickering in her eyes. “He’s one of the manic Digimon we told you about. He wants to kill us.”
“I won’t let him,” Bunny said, and Ezra realized it was the very first thing she’d said to any of them. He blinked at her and she returned his gaze evenly. “I have to protect Anna.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Anna said, looking down at her, and she nodded. Anna bit her lip. “Okay. Be careful.”
“Wait a minute,” Ezra said, holding his hands out to stop them before Bunny could jump down. “You - it’s dangerous. Ember can handle it.”
“No he can’t,” Anna said, and to accentuate her point, Astamon flung Ember towards them, sending him sliding across the road. Ezra instinctively reached out to grab Anna, pulling her away, but she wrestled her arm free of his grasp and glared at him, the exact same way she always did when he was being unreasonable.
He drew his hand back, guilt settling in his stomach, and that was apparently all the permission she needed.
She didn’t even say anything; she just opened her arms to let Bunny land on the ground. Bunny wasted no time, running towards Astamon as fast as her little feet would carry her, and the end of her antenna began to glow.
“
It smacked into his chest and he recoiled slightly, then looked at Bunny out of the corner of his eye.
“You’re pathetic,” he said, and Bunny drew herself taller indignantly.
“
He rolled his eyes and reached down for his knife, pointing it directly at her.
“
“No!”
Something blew past Ezra, and he realized all too late that it was Anna, rushing to grab Bunny as Astamon began to attack. They somersaulted to the side, just past Astamon’s feet - but Astamon altered his course to follow them, their movement nothing more than a slight inconvenience.
Ezra didn’t even realize he’d run towards them as well until he was blinded by a searing white light taking up his whole vision.
“Evolution engaged.”
Beside him, Astamon growled in surprise, his attack faltering and coming to an end, and then the light cleared and Bunny stepped forward.
She’d evolved.
“Lekismon,” said a familiar voice, this time emanating from Anna’s pocket, and she looked confused for a moment before she reached in and pulled out a small white device. “Champion level beast man Digimon. Although its personality is as wavering as the phases of the moon, its appearance exudes a somewhat mystical air.”
She was… still very small. Shorter than Anna, actually. She was fully bipedal now, her legs having grown exponentially and boosting her height significantly. Black gloves and bands covered her hands and ankles, and around her chest - which was now purple and somewhat gelatinous - was wrapped the same moon pendant she had worn as Lunamon, this time secured by a thick metallic band. From her back sprouted six purple tendrils made of the same material as her chest. Over her face, she wore a metal mask with a hole cut in the forehead to let her long antenna flow free, with yellow ribbons tied to the back of the mask.
Astamon started to raise his gun, but Ember jumped at him from behind, tackling him to the ground.
“
“
“
“What happened to Bunny?” Anna said, as Ember rushed at Astamon, wrestling him further down the street away from the two humans. She looked up at Ezra, still clutching the device in her hands. “What is this thing?”
“She evolved, like Ember did,” he said. She looked worried for a moment. “It’s temporary, don’t worry. Also, that’s a digivice, it -”
He was cut off by Bunny hopping backwards towards them. The tendrils on her back moved to point at Astamon, turning to face her. “
He shook himself out, pointing his gun at her - and, additionally, Ezra and Anna directly behind her. “
Ezra grabbed Anna and dove out of the line of literal fire, just barely avoiding being struck, but Bunny was not so lucky. She fell backwards, crying out in pain as the bullets pelted her relentlessly, and even as she moved to attack again, the tips of her ears and tendrils began to glow white - faintly, but visibly. “
Astamon’s attack ended moments before Bunny’s started, but the damage had already been done. Three of the arrows hit him in the leg, the rest falling to the ground uselessly as Bunny was fully consumed by the white light. In its wake, moments later, she collapsed, devolved to rookie and just about passed out.
Anna ran forward to grab her and Ezra scanned the scene, looking around for Ember. He found him lying on the ground further down the street, his wings folded to shield himself.
He was breathing, and he hadn’t devolved yet, but he didn’t look so good.
Ezra’s line of view was blocked by Astamon coming to stand in front of him, gun aimed directly at his face.
Ezra had always imagined that he’d have some profound thought right before he died, something that would make everything make sense, something to comfort him as he went out. A way for his brain to tell him, hey, it’s okay. You did well. With what you had, you did very well.
Needless to say, he’d thought about it a lot.
But the only thought that surfaced in his mind was a question. A question he’d heard before. A question he’d answered too late.
“Will you follow your heart?”
Ezra closed his eyes.
He knew by now what it was. Alex had told him how he’d thought of his own question the night of Castor’s ultimate evolution, how it had given him the courage needed to keep going, to trust Castor to handle himself. Ezra had known even before then that the others in the group had received similarly inquisitive messages, all from an unknown sender.
And everyone had answered them.
Nobody had told him as such, of course, but he still knew. No one wanted to admit that they’d responded to a question from a stranger, in the hopes that something, anything, would happen. That the person on the other end would say something, reassure them that everything would be alright, that they would make it through this, that they weren’t alone. That they didn’t have to lie.
Ezra had lied, too.
Yes.
What else was there to say? What sort of question even was that? How could he follow his heart if he didn’t know what his heart wanted?
There wasn’t any other answer. He couldn’t tell them the truth, that he didn’t know what he wanted and he didn’t know how to find out and how even once he did find out, he didn’t have any idea how he’d ever get there.
He hadn’t even replied to it when he’d first seen it. It had been early in the morning over the weekend. It wasn’t that it had slipped his mind - it hadn’t. He’d thought about it all that day and all that night until, finally, during recess at school the next day, the first thing he did was grab his phone from his backpack and fire off a reply.
He couldn’t help but feel bad about responding late. He didn’t know why. It just made him feel guilty, for some strange, forever unknown reason.
But it didn’t matter. It was all in the past. Water under the bridge. It wasn’t like it was going to save him now. It couldn’t.
Because he was going to save himself.
He didn’t even think; he just lunged forward, hands reaching out to grab Astamon’s shirt as he barrelled into him shoulder-first. Astamon stumbled back a few steps, confused and unsure what to do, and that was all the opening Ezra needed.
Digging his fingers deeper into the fabric, Ezra shoved him down onto the ground.
You know, looking back on it, maybe his response hadn’t been a lie. Maybe he’d just needed some time to think about it. Maybe he’d just needed to wait for the right moment.
He’d followed his heart after all, hadn’t he?
As Astamon shoved himself to his feet, glaring down at Ezra with nothing but rage and hatred in his eyes, Ezra’s digivice, safely in his pocket, beeped, vibrated, and began to speak.
“Ultimate evolution engaged. Please do not turn off the digivice while evolution is in progress.”
Behind Astamon, down the street, Ember, too, got to his feet and began to glow bright white, the light overtaking Ezra’s vision until it burst apart as Ember roared.
“
Astamon hissed something to himself, but it was drowned out by Ezra’s digivice again.
“Flaremon. Ultimate level beast man Digimon. Although its regal mane and imposing manner may be intimidating at first glance, it will brave any hardship for the sake of its comrades, and it has gained near unbelievable speed and advanced fighting skills.”
“This is annoying,” Astamon said under his breath, and Ember, as if having heard him, immediately rushed forward to grapple with him.
As they fought, Ezra took in Ember’s new form. He was bipedal now, and twice Astamon’s height and bulk, easily overpowering him even despite Astamon’s agility. The mane he’d had as Firamon had extended into a long ruff of hair reaching almost to the ground, though he still had the two locks that dangled down past his cheeks. The mantle on his head hadn’t changed, and flames spouted from the sides and forehead just as they always did. To match the mantle, he’d gained extra armor on his midriff, shoulders, and chest. From the shoulders extended two long, blade-like extremities, the purpose of which was not clear to Ezra, and around his wrists were wrapped the same bracelets he always wore - which burst into flame as he called out an attack.
“
The fire spread up his arms, and his feet similarly went up in flames, until his limbs were coated in fire. He reached down to grab Astamon, who he’d knocked to the ground moments prior, and hit him with a flurry of kicks, punches, and slashes, until Astamon stumbled backwards once again.
Astamon glared at him, then dove past him, reaching for his gun laying on the ground just a few feet away. He grabbed it and spun around, aiming directly at Ember. “
Ember twisted around, one of the blades on his shoulders coming up to protect his face, and from one side extended an energy shield of sorts. The bullets bounced off the shield, and Astamon hissed as his attack was rendered useless.
The blade flicked back down to its neutral position, and Ember turned to face Astamon. “
He tried to dodge, but the attack caught him anyway, and he fell to the ground, his gun sliding away down the street. Ember placed a foot on it and shoved it out of his reach, then came to stand over Astamon.
Astamon smiled up at him. “Would you believe me if I told you I surrender?”
Ember’s eyes narrowed. “No.”
“Good,” Astamon said. “Because I’m not going to.
He jumped up at Ember, catching him across the throat with his knife and knocking him away with his kick. Ember dug his claws into the asphalt to stop himself, and Ezra grimaced at the claw marks left in his wake.
As if the property damage to that one shop hadn’t been enough.
Actually, looking up and down the street again (and catching sight of Anna and Bunny, hiding up against one of the buildings), they’d done their fair share of damage already. Small pockmarks on the sidewalk and street from Astamon’s bullets, scorch marks along the sides of most of the buildings, scratches and slashes everywhere…
Everything was fine.
(Everything was not fine.)
“
Astamon growled. “
“
Ember’s blast of energy hit Astamon at point blank range. When the light and dust cleared, he was laying flat on his back, only having the energy to raise his head to look up at Ember.
“Get off of me please,” he said, and surprisingly, Ember obliged.
Astamon stood up, dusting his jacket and pants off and looking around for his gun. He reached down to grab it and slipped his knife into his pocket, and Ember bristled, raising his fists.
Astamon side-eyed him. “Please. Don’t you remember how we met? I told you I’m not interested in fighting.”
“Then what was all this?” Ember said. He lowered his arms slightly, but retained his fierce expression and defensive stance.
“Fighting,” Astamon said simply. “I never said I wouldn’t fight. Just that I wasn’t interested.” He straightened the collar of his shirt out, looking back up at Ember. “And, frankly, none of this has been very fun for me. I think it’s due time for me to clock out.”
Ezra frowned, opening his mouth, but he couldn’t think of what to say. By the time he closed it, Astamon had already turned around and began to walk away.
Ember took a step towards him and instantly he paused, looking back over his shoulder at him.
“You can follow me if you want,” he said, shrugging. “Just know it won’t be of any use to you. Besides,” he added, gaze drifting to where Anna and Bunny were still crouched, “you have someone who needs tending to.”
With a wink, Astamon went on his way, dragging his gun along the ground beside him.
He didn’t look back again.
“You sure you’re okay?”
Anna rolled her eyes as Ezra leaned on the railing and looked over at her. “I told you, I’m fine. It didn’t hurt.”
“If you say so,” he said.
It was evening, and - after a long, strenuous journey, and after possibly the worst day of Ezra’s life - they were finally on the ferry heading towards File Island.
It hadn’t been hard to find the rest of the group after Astamon had left. They’d all heard from some Digimon that had passed by that there was a fight going on downtown, and they’d split up to look for the four of them. Alex and Castor had been the first to find them, staring at them down the ruined street as Ezra tried desperately to wipe the blood off of Anna’s leg. She’d been hit by Astamon’s attack when she’d rushed in to grab Bunny, and though it hadn’t been deep, it had bled a fair amount.
She’d said multiple times that it didn’t hurt, but Ezra didn’t believe her.
The ferry was just about to depart when they finally regrouped with the others, and - after a short recap from Anna and Ember - they’d headed out towards it as soon as everyone was in check. Damien and Bumble had gone to buy tickets for Anna, promising that they’d catch up.
Ezra hadn’t left Anna’s side, and he knew she was getting annoyed, but he couldn’t help it. The first fight she’d been in, and he couldn’t protect her.
Anna insisted it was her own fault for running in to grab Bunny, but even so.
Now, Ezra, Ember, Anna, and Bunny were on the deck of the ferry, relishing the peace and quiet at last. …Quiet except for Ezra checking up on her and Bunny every so often.
“If you need anything for it,” he said for perhaps the eighth time that night, and Anna’s head turned towards him.
“I said I’m fine,” she said, resting her chin on her arms, propped up against the railing.
Ezra snapped his jaw shut, turning to look out across the water. They couldn’t see File Island yet, not from this distance, but he knew they would soon. They were so close to figuring everything out. So close to finally having answers.
…Isn’t that exactly what he’d said to himself when they’d reached Asuramon?
He shook his head out. They’d find the Catalyst easily enough, he was sure of it.
There was something else that was still tugging at his brain, though. He’d tried to ignore it - it wasn’t really important, just him being mopey - but it kept creeping up on him and surprising him when he least expected it.
He had to let it go, he knew, but… he couldn’t. He had to know.
“Maybe I’m being dramatic,” he said, and he sensed Anna lift her head to look at him, “but… I kinda expected you to be worried about me, when you first saw me.”
“Why would I be worried about you?” she said. “You had your friends. You weren’t on your own here like I was. I know you can handle yourself.”
That last part felt a little unnecessary, but he ignored it. “Not about that,” he said, looking over at her finally. She just looked… confused. That wasn’t what he was expecting.
“We’ve been here for weeks,” he continued, feeling less and less comfortable with each word he spoke. Something was settling in the bottom of his stomach, forming a pit. It was something he was very very familiar with.
That premonition he had whenever something really bad was about to happen.
On his other side, Ember looked up at him, tilting his head curiously, but Ezra kept his gaze on Anna, who returned it.
…She was looking even more concerned now.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
Ezra swallowed the lump in his throat. It grew back instantly. “Weren’t you worried about me? Weren’t mom and dad?” He looked down at his feet, trying to calm his breathing. “…We’ve all been missing from home for a month. Surely… surely someone is worried about us, right? Looking for us? Waiting for us to come home?”
“Are you lying to me?” she said. “This isn’t funny. You could’ve just asked me to feel sad or whatever instead of lying to -”
“I’m not lying,” he said, turning to her and grabbing her by the shoulders. She blinked, letting go of the railing and letting her arms drop to her sides. “I’ve been gone for a month. How haven’t you noticed?”
She was silent for a moment, her gaze suddenly distant, staring off into space. When she came back, there was something different in her eyes from the confusion and annoyance that had been there only moments prior.
Now, there was something akin to fear in them.
“Ezra,” she said quietly. Her voice was trembling. Her voice never trembled. She lifted her hands to place on Ezra’s own arms, still holding her shoulders, still shaking.
Anna shook her head and looked up at him again. “I think we came to the Digital World on the same day.”