EPISODE 23 - I'D GIVE YOU THE MOON
Anna blinked awake, greeted by the utterly depressing view of the gray forest around her.
She didn’t want to be awake this early. She’d slept fitfully; too many dreams, ones she’d had before and ones that were brand new mingling together as they so often did. Right now, she would rather be anywhere than here.
She lay where she was for a moment, using her jacket as a pillow, her legs curled up against her chest and hands balled into fists beside her face. She breathed deeply, acclimating herself to her surroundings, and then closed her eyes again.
“Good morning,” Mabel sang, opening the door to Anna’s room, and Anna groaned.
It was too early in the morning to deal with her. It was always too early to deal with her, but Anna very rarely got what she wanted.
“Aw, don’t give me that,” Mabel said, coming and taking a seat next to Anna on the couch. “You’re not still mad at me, are you?”
Anna remained silent, and Mabel sighed. “You didn’t have to ask him that question. It was just a suggestion.”
“I’m not mad at you,” Anna said, telling a half-truth. Mabel knew this. “Just don’t know how to feel about it.”
“You could’ve told him about me,” Mabel suggested. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
“Yeah, but I would have.” Anna leaned over to lay down on the couch. “I haven’t even told Ezra about you, why would I tell Damien.”
“You should tell Ezra,” Mabel said. “I want to meet him.”
Anna shoved her arms under her head as a pillow. “You already know him.”
“But he doesn’t know me!”
Hopefully he wouldn’t for a very long time.
“That’s rude,” Mabel said.
Anna pushed herself up into a sitting position, still trying to adjust to being awake. She rubbed her eyes and looked to the side; Damien was laying down a few feet away, facing away from her, obviously still asleep. Farther past him, Bunny was sitting next to a tree, and she waved when she saw Anna looking at her.
Anna stood up, brushing herself off as quietly as she could, and approached Bunny, sitting down next to her.
“Say good morning to her for me,” Mabel said.
“You didn’t wake me up to keep watch,” Anna said instead. Mabel rolled her eyes, but did not comment.
Bunny shrugged apologetically. “Damien didn’t wake me up until a few hours ago. I don’t think he wanted to, but he looked really tired.”
As if summoned by Bunny’s words, Damien stirred, stifling a yawn as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Hey,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
Anna lifted a hand to wave to him. “You didn’t wake me up.”
“That was Bunny’s job,” he said, sitting up properly. “I woke her up, she was supposed to wake you up.”
“You didn’t wake her up until a few hours ago,” Anna said.
Damien shook his head. “Well, there’s no use arguing it now.” He stood up, stretching out his arms and legs, then turned to his backpack down by his feet. “You hungry?”
“His jacket’s missing,” Mabel pointed out, and Anna was about to shush her, but -
Hmm. She was right. Damien’s signature gray jacket was not tied around his waist as it usually was, and instead was laying -
“Did you give me your jacket,” Anna said.
Damien looked over at her from where he was rifling through his backpack, then glanced to where Anna had been laying only a few minutes ago, his jacket on the ground where her head had rested. “Yeah,” he said. “You looked pretty uncomfortable sleeping with your head on the ground, so I handed it to you and you just grabbed it in your sleep.”
“Tell him thank you,” Mabel said.
“Thanks,” Anna said, not for Mabel’s benefit but rather because she was actually grateful. Nevertheless, Mabel grinned, and Anna briefly considered hitting her with a pillow, but decided against it.
“Here,” Damien said, tossing two cheerful apples, one after the other, at Anna. She miraculously caught both of them before they would have clocked her in the face, and handed one of them to Bunny before biting into hers.
“If you want more than that, let me know,” he continued, sitting down cross-legged in front of them, and both Anna and Bunny shook their heads.
“Ask him for more drizzle cabbage,” Mabel said. “I really liked it.”
“I don’t care what you like,” Anna said. Mabel stuck her tongue out.
They ate in relative silence. Damien looked at his digivice a couple times, still trying to get the map to work, but it was just as dead as it had been yesterday. Anna hadn’t even bothered trying hers. She didn’t use her digivice a lot, actually. She’d had it for, what, two days now? Bunny had evolved exactly once. What would she even do with it?
“Have any of the others called?” she asked Damien.
He shook his head. “Service is dead here,” he said. “I tried wandering around a bit last night, but no dice. I didn’t want to go too far, anyways. We’ll be out of here soon enough. If this grass is proof of anything.” He reached a hand down to rip out a chunk of grass, then let it fall to the ground through his fingers.
“Personally,” Mabel said, kicking her legs out to place on the coffee table in front of her, “I like it here. I’m a big fan.”
“Of course you are,” Anna grumbled. She was unable to resist an eye roll, and Damien looked at her weirdly, but he didn’t say anything.
They finished their breakfast and started to pack up. Anna tried handing Damien’s jacket back to him, but he shook his head.
“You keep it,” he said, pulling at his own sweater. “I’m warm enough.”
Anna regarded him for a few moments, then tied the jacket around her waist.
“We ready to go?” Damien asked. Anna and Bunny both nodded, Anna reaching down to scoop Bunny into her arms (as she always did), and Damien returned the nod, then turned around and began to walk.
Anna came up to walk beside Damien, and saw as his shoulders relaxed slightly. She smiled to herself, not daring to look over at him, but she was glad that he was at least appearing to be feeling a little better, even if he wasn’t actually on the inside.
Anna knew, a lot better than most people, that it was very easy to hide your inner feelings and put on an air of assurance.
Mostly because she had someone else living in her head with her.
On a good day, Anna was fine with this. Sure, it was a little annoying at times, and the source of the person living in her head certainly didn’t help things, but it was fine. It wasn’t Mabel’s fault that she’d ended up here. Anna knew this.
But it was still a little frustrating.
“It’s fun to tease you,” Mabel said, and Anna sighed, long and loud. “I’m your sister. I get to do these things. Ezra does the same.”
“Not anymore,” Anna said.
Mabel giggled. “Only because you started getting angry at him whenever he does. I still think the ‘there’s no trees in China’ bit is really funny.”
“You think everything is funny.”
“Not everything,” Mabel corrected. “There’s plenty of things that are no joking matter. War. Famine. Death. Pestilence.”
Anna was unamused. “Those are just the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”
“And they’re not funny. I also think that you’re not funny.”
Yeah, that was pretty common to hear from her.
Anna was entirely used to her. It had been years at this point. Mabel had been around since she was, what, six? Seven?
“Six,” Mabel said.
Six years old. She still didn’t fully understand why it had happened. Well, she knew why it had happened - she knew exactly what had caused it - but her own mind, despite her overfamiliarity with the inner workings of it, was still at times an enigma.
It made her really, really angry.
Mabel was fine. For a given value of fine. Anna had long since given up on trying to get rid of her - there was literally no way to, after all - and by this point had sort of… begrudgingly accepted her. She was going to be around for the rest of Anna’s life, unless some omnipotent cosmic being managed to whisk her away and leave Anna all alone in the tiny little room in her mind.
She didn’t like thinking about that, actually.
Sure, Mabel was annoying as hell most of the time (“Hey!”), and whenever she tried to take control of the body (which she’d never managed to actually do), she got a splitting headache and had to physically shove her out of the way (which was very difficult, considering Mabel was some sort of weird demon-shapeshifter?), and also she loved sharing her opinions on every goddamn thing that someone said to Anna (and frequently made Anna vocalize her opinions, which got her in trouble a lot), but she was also the source of a lot of Anna’s nightmares and fears and hatred (she still didn’t like hearing her parents speak to each other in hushed tones).
…You thought there was going to be something good in there, didn’t you.
Well. Mabel was good at remembering things and coming up with ideas on the fly. Scarily good, in fact. She was the one who’d remembered it had been five days since Anna arrived in the Digital World when she met the group for the first time in Northern Pier. She was the one who’d tried to convince Ezra that it would be more dangerous to leave Anna and Bunny in the city on their own. (It hadn’t worked, obviously, but it had been a valiant effort.)
So maybe it wasn’t all bad? And whenever she was misbehaving and Anna would banish her to The Void, Anna would start feeling all weird and fuzzy and wouldn’t really come down from it until she let Mabel back in, so maybe that indicated something?
Anna didn’t really want to explore any of those emotions, no matter how much Mabel insisted that Anna actually secretly cared for her and would be super sad if Mabel someday disappeared permanently.
Mabel had been practically the only constant in her life ever since Anna had first found her (or rather, been found by her). She definitely wasn’t the biggest fan of her, as evidenced by everything above, but… she couldn’t help but admit that having someone else with her at all times was a little comforting.
Even if that someone was a massive pain in the ass ninety nine percent of the time.
“That’s very kind of you,” Mabel said, finally standing up from the couch. She stretched her arms out in front of her and then winked down at Anna. “I’m gonna go explore The Void some more. I think I heard someone out there the other day. Tell me when we get out of this stupid place.”
Anna elected not to bring up how, just mere minutes ago, Mabel had said she actually liked the Corroded Woodlands, and instead completely ignored her as she left the room. Anna breathed a sigh of relief, both inwardly and outwardly.
This was going to be a long day.
The rest of their trek through the forest was uneventful and almost boring. They came across exactly one patch of fog, and it was so small that Anna was sure she could have done some “sick parkour”, as Dare had said, to get around it if she’d had to.
Mabel poked her head in through the door for a brief moment. “She said ‘secret parkour skills’, not sick parkour.”
Whatever. Point was, it was almost pitiful just how little of the fog they saw, compared to what it had been like yesterday. She wondered if any of the others were having the same experience, and if they were also considering parkour.
No parkour was necessary, though; as it turned out, the grass had not been a fluke, and had indeed been a sign that they were approaching the edge of the forest. They saw more and more foliage as they walked, the grass growing lusher and greener and the trees around them thicker with leaves and branches.
They didn’t even realize they’d reached the edge of the forest until they stepped into the midday sun.
It was like a huge cloth had been lifted off of the sky; where it was dark and gray only moments before, it was suddenly as bright as it could be in the afternoon, light beaming down on them from above and clouds drifting across the sky and grass beneath their feet and…
A town just fifty or so yards ahead of them.
“That’s weird,” Damien mumbled, shielding his eyes with his hand. “That’s Toy Town. We’re not supposed to be here…” He trailed off, stopped in his tracks and staring directly at the town. “We’re too far north.”
“What do you mean?” Anna asked, holding Bunny tighter and looking up at him. It was good that they were out of the forest, right? Why did he seem upset?
“We must have been heading northwest,” he said, taking a hesitant step forward. “We weren’t supposed to hit Toy Town this early. A few more days…”
“Shortcut?” Anna suggested, and Damien’s eyes narrowed.
“I guess. There was more of Native Glade we were supposed to check out, but -”
“But if the others are still down south,” Bunny said, drawing both Anna and Damien’s attention to her, “then it could be a shortcut for us. Cover more ground?”
Anna nodded, looking to Damien, and he regarded the both of them for a moment. Eventually he exhaled, pulling his sunglasses down over his eyes as he squinted up at the sun, and shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah, sure.”
He didn’t seem particularly enthused about it (though really, did he ever seem enthused about anything?), but thankfully he didn’t have to be. Bunny hopped down from Anna’s arms and, casting a glance and a wink over her shoulder at her, started towards the town, not exactly running but not exactly walking.
Anna followed her without even waiting for Damien, but she heard him head after her a few seconds later, though not without a few indistinct mutters under his breath.
It didn’t take long to cross the short strip of grass to reach the town. It was almost disconcerting to be walking out in the open with a visible sun in the sky after they’d spent so long within the forest. They hesitated on the edge, peering down the street in front of them, but Anna quickly took the first step forward, turning to make sure Bunny and Damien were following before continuing.
The buildings were tall, with pointed tile roofs, and painted more colorfully than any building Anna had ever seen. Cherry red and sour green, striking violet and pale pink, golden yellow and vivid blue… The patterns on the buildings didn’t seem to follow any sort of form. Some were striped, others spotted; yet more sported zigzags and splatters and all sorts of shapes. It was jarring to look at, but Anna couldn’t deny it was certainly fitting of a place called Toy Town. Especially because of all of the giant toys scattered around.
Wherever they went, there were huge toy installations - an airplane, a teddy bear, a stack of building blocks, a gumball machine (which wasn’t a toy, but close enough). Sometimes they took the place of buildings along the streets, and other times they were simply there as what seemed to be decoration. They didn’t seem to be scattered; they looked like they had been placed around intentionally.
“Do you think it works?” Anna asked, gazing up at a life-sized model train placed parallel to a stretch of houses. She reached a hand out hesitantly, touching the wheel. It felt like it was made of wood, just like a regular toy train.
“Probably not,” Damien said, standing a few paces behind her with his hands in his pockets. “All of the toys here are just that - toys. You’d only be able to use them if you were big enough to play with them.”
Not all the toys were ginormous, though. As they walked, at practically every street corner was a box full of toys, with a sign on the front that Bunny and Damien translated as “free”. Anna and Bunny rifled through a few of them, pulling out stuffed animals and dolls and various sports balls and something that seemed vaguely similar to a Tamagotchi but was shaped like a rectangle. The tiny screen didn’t turn on, even as Anna pressed all the buttons on it. Probably busted. But even so…
She tucked the little yellow-and-white device into her purse. She’d mess around with it later.
“You know,” Damien said as they kept walking, “I don’t really remember Toy Town being this empty.”
Anna hadn’t realized it until he’d pointed it out, but as soon as he did, she felt a… creeping sense of dread. It had been there, simmering in her stomach, all along, and now it was finally welling up into something tangible.
Toy Town was practically deserted.
There were a few Digimon milling about in the town. They were no larger than Bunny, presumably all rookie levels, and they gave the three of them cautious, wary looks as they walked, but none of them approached them or said anything or did anything at all. It was like they were trying to act like the three of them weren’t even there.
This, obviously, did not strike Anna as a good sign.
Anna and Bunny tried to talk to a few of them, asking what was going on and where everyone was and if they’d ever heard of a Catalyst and if they’d seen other humans. None of them responded. Most shied away, continuing on their ways and ignoring the two of them completely, while others simply shook their heads to signal they weren’t interested in talking.
Anna sighed, backing away from a particularly shy little Digimon that appeared to be several boxes stacked on top of each other, a single red eye peeking out from a hole in the topmost box. This wasn’t working. Either the residents of Toy Town were nowhere near as lively as their hometown’s name would suggest, or something was going on to make them act like this.
“We should bail out,” Damien said after about an hour or two of trying, to no avail, to strike up conversation with the nearby Digimon. “We’re not gonna get any answers from them, and we still need to meet back up with the others.”
“I don’t think we should give up that easily,” Bunny said softly. “You said that it’s not supposed to be this empty, right? Meaning that usually it’s more populated? More… friendly?”
Damien was silent for a moment, then nodded and sighed. “Yeah. From what I’ve heard, at least. Everyone back in File City always went on about how fun Toy Town was, everyone is so nice there, you should definitely check it out if you get the chance.” He crossed his arms, looking up and out at the sky. “But if nobody’s going to talk to us…”
“Then we should figure out why,” Anna cut in, and Damien raised an eyebrow down at her. “Something must be going on here, right? Maybe there’s…”
She didn’t want to say “maybe there’s a manic Digimon doing this” out loud, for a multitude of reasons, but Damien picked up on it anyway.
“And if there is something, what are we going to do about it?” He looked pointedly from Anna down to Bunny, then back up to Anna. “We can’t take this on alone.”
“You mean I can’t take it on,” Bunny said. She blinked up at Damien, her ears twitching. “That I can’t do this.”
Damien massaged his temples, looking both guilty and vindicated at the same exact time. “I don’t mean it in a bad way,” he said slowly. “But. You’ve only evolved to champion once. You’ve never made it to ultimate. I’m not making any hard calls yet, but chances are, if it is a manic Digimon, it’s going to be too powerful for one champion to take on alone.”
“But we don’t have any other choice,” Anna said. “We’re supposed to save the world, right? We can’t just ignore parts of it because it’s too difficult.”
“That’s not what I -” Damien started, but he was summarily interrupted by a new voice from behind him.
“Hey!”
At first, Anna wondered if it was someone else in the group, having finally found them - but then she realized she didn’t recognize the voice, and she blinked and leaned around Damien to get a better look at whoever it was.
It was a Digimon, pretty obviously, as evidenced by her eight foot stature and bright green hair and pig costume - for, indeed, she was wearing a pig costume. Her main body was exposed, but her legs, forearms, and her head were all encased in pig-like rubber armor, with her helmet appearing more fabric-like but undoubtedly as tough as the rest of her costume. Where the pig head’s mouth would be was a large hole in which her own head was visible, with choppy green hair and a black mask that exposed her eyes. In her left hand (hoof) she held a ginormous weapon that looked a little bit like a rake, but a rake that was built entirely for killing people - and her right hand was lifted in the air, waving at the three of them as she sauntered down the street toward them.
Understandably enough, the three of them tensed up, unsure of this Digimon’s intentions, but as she got closer they saw her eyes were not white. That was a bit of relief. Sort of.
“Hi!” she said as she finally reached them. She propped her rake up against the building next to her and then curtseyed, winking at them as she did. “I’m ChoHakkaimon.” She reached one large pig hoof out to them, beaming down at them.
Cautiously, Anna reached her own hand out, placing it on one of ChoHakkaimon’s claws. ChoHakkaimon shook her hand up and down, then stuck it toward Damien. He regarded it for a moment, then - sighing through his nose - shook her hand as well. Bunny reached her paw up and ChoHakkaimon stooped down to be level with her, and then stood back up once she was done.
“You new here?” she asked, tilting her head curiously.
“Yes,” Anna said, and ChoHakkaimon nodded self-satisfactorily. “We came from the forest earlier today. We were just checking the town out.”
“I see,” ChoHakkaimon said, tapping her chin with one blunt claw. “And how’s that workin’ out for ya?”
“It’s not,” Damien said flatly. ChoHakkaimon snickered, then took on a more serious expression.
“I know I don’t really have a place to ask,” she said, “but if you can’t tell, the town’s… not exactly the way it used to be.” She gestured all around her, at the buildings and the toys and the streets devoid of any sign of life. “Someone’s been comin’ round causin’ trouble every now and then. Most have fled to File City or the Innovation Lands, not seein’ it worth it to stick around. Can’t say I blame ‘em, honestly, but even so.” She looked down at her hooves and inhaled sharply. “Again, not really my place to ask, but. Would ya mind comin’ with me? There’s someone who could really use your help.”
“Hold on,” Damien said, holding his hands up. Anna frowned slightly. “What exactly is going on? Who’s the one ‘causing trouble’? What’s so bad about it that the townsfolk are evacuating?”
“Well, see,” ChoHakkaimon cut in, tapping her nose awfully gently for how large her claws were. “It’s not exactly an evacuation more so than they’re bein’ run out of town.”
“Yeah, okay, not really any better,” Damien said, folding his arms across his chest. “Run out by who?”
ChoHakkaimon sighed, her head lolling to the side slightly as she looked at Anna with a very distinct expression, almost as if to say “can you believe this guy?” “I dunno his name,” she said, looking back at Damien. “He’s never said anythin’ to us. Just comes around every other night or so and chases everyone out. I dunno why. We’ve tried askin’ him, but, again, never says anythin’.”
Anna’s frown deepened, and she leaned down to pick Bunny up. That explained a lot of what they’d been seeing around town. If the townsfolk were being harassed by a mysterious Digimon every night, it made sense that they wouldn’t want to talk to any other strangers.
And if they could do something to help them…
“You said there’s someone who needs our help,” Anna said when Damien didn’t ask anything else. She fidgeted with her hands, rubbing one of Bunny’s ribbons between her fingers. “Could you bring us to them? We might not be able to help you, but we’ll try.”
ChoHakkaimon nodded fervently, her face lighting back up. “Of course! Thanks a lot, you have no idea how much this means to us.” She reached both her hands forward, grabbing one of Anna’s hands (and subsequently causing her to almost drop Bunny) to shake it again. With a flourish, she turned around and swept up her rake, resting it over her shoulder. “C’mon!” She waved them onward with her opposite hoof, beginning to lead the way, an obnoxious swagger in her step as she walked.
“What are we getting into,” Damien mumbled, ushering Anna forward and following close behind.
Anna couldn’t help but wonder the same thing.
It couldn’t be too bad, could it? They’d find the Digimon causing the trouble, beat some sense into him, and then be on their merry way. Anna was entirely confident that Bunny would be able to handle herself, even if Damien wasn’t. They’d be fine, right?
But hadn’t the group said that most of the manic Digimon they’d been fighting recently had really only been interested in them? That it had been weeks since they’d come across a truly mindless one, who was simply lashing out at everyone around them instead of gunning (no pun intended) straight for the humans?
So then why was this Digimon attacking the townsfolk? Unless he wasn’t manic…
Anna really hoped he wasn’t.
ChoHakkaimon led them deeper into the town, winding down streets and around buildings. Several of the Digimon along the roads that they encountered looked up at ChoHakkaimon almost hopefully, and then caught sight of Anna, Bunny, and Damien, and instantly deflated. It wasn’t very confidence-boosting.
What exactly had happened to make them this wary of newcomers?
They rounded one final corner, and before them was a tall gateway made of building blocks. On either side of the arch, walls extended outward, encircling a large grassy section of the town dotted with strange stone sculptures. This area was considerably more toy-oriented than the rest of the town, and that was saying a lot. There were no houses in sight; instead, tall spires of more building blocks, of all different shapes and colors and sizes, rose up from the ground in the distance, forming an almost castle-like construction, save for the fact there were no visible entrances. It seemed to be mostly for display. As they got closer, Anna noticed that the ground wasn’t grass - it was a green playmat spanning the entire area, decorated with printed flowers and pebbles.
Once they stepped through the gate, the stone sculptures became much clearer. They weren’t sculptures at all - they were… cribs? Cradles? Something to that effect. They were very simplistic, with just a large circular divot scooped out of each of them. It looked like whoever (or whatever) had made them hadn’t cared much for aesthetics.
They headed further into the area, passing more and more of the cradles and aiming for the castle structure in the distance. Very few of the cradles were occupied, but the ones that were held very tiny Digimon (presumably babies) who were fast asleep. They didn’t open their eyes or move at all as the group passed them, save for the rise and fall of their bodies.
They were small, and spherical, and didn’t have very many defining features, aside from some with giant leaves sprouting from their head and others with very long tails.
They were really cute, though.
“Here we are,” ChoHakkaimon said as they reached the castle structure. It was larger up close than Anna had thought it would be - and now that she was next to it, she could see that there was a door to it. …Not a door, really, more like an opening where one large building block had been removed. It was too dark to see inside, even as Anna took a few steps forward and squinted to get a better view.
ChoHakkaimon stepped toward the doorway and rapped her claws against the block next to it. “Catchy!~” she called, peeking her head inside. “You’ve got visitors!”
She stepped back, placing her hooves on her hips and tapping one foot impatiently. Anna blinked, leaning around her to see inside, and as she did -
“Terribly sorry!” a very harried-sounding voice came from within, preceding the appearance of the speaker by only a few seconds. A large Digimon zoomed out of the doorway, almost crashing into the group before it managed to slow down and right itself.
It was… very hard for Anna to find the words to describe this Digimon. It seemed to be a sort of metal ball with a simplistic face and two small red-gloved arms (not unlike Impmon’s gloves, actually), but it had no legs. This was because its lower body was some sort of… slot machine UFO? Maybe? Said UFO had two joysticks and two buttons protruding from the top, and it was with these joysticks that the Digimon controlled the enormous pair of arms that extended from the bottom of the UFO. They were long and gangly, the hands being a pair of red boxing gloves mirroring the gloves of the Digimon itself, and they flailed about as it came to a stop, floating a few feet above the ground.
Anna noticed, as it stilled its hands, that it had dropped a pile of toys on the ground, and she quickly stepped forward to set Bunny down and help pick them up. The Digimon noticed her and made a mechanical yelping noise, then rushed to assist her, taking the toys she had gathered and picking up the rest of them.
“Thank you, thank you,” it said. “Terribly sorry. You’re not hurt, are you? So sorry.”
“I’m fine,” Anna said, retreating to her original position with Bunny.
The Digimon nodded (read: rotated its ball body up and down a few times) and then looked to ChoHakkaimon. “Augh!” it shouted, as if it hadn’t noticed her until now, and jumped into the air. “Oh, it’s you.” It relaxed slightly, and then looked at Anna, Bunny, and Damien. “Hello!” It lifted one of its long arms to wave, then set it back down and waved with its actual arm.
“Hi,” Anna said, waving back. Bunny did the same, and Damien simply nodded in acknowledgement.
“Visitors,” ChoHakkaimon said again, gesturing to the three of them. “Meet CatchMamemon.” She pointed up at the Digimon, and it waved again. “It’s the caretaker of this Primary Village.”
“It’s not much of one these days,” CatchMamemon said, its “shoulders” drooping slightly. “But we make do. Are you visitors here?”
Anna suddenly got the very distinct impression that CatchMamemon was not the roundest egg in the coop.
“Yeah,” Damien said, sounding as if he’d had the exact same thought.
“ChoHakkaimon led us here,” Anna said. “Are you the one who needs our help?”
“Oh!” CatchMamemon said, and the slot machine on the front of its UFO started up. The slots flashed through numerous different numbers and symbols for a few seconds before they stopped, revealing three 7's in a row. “Yes! Are you here to help?”
“Depends on what it is,” Damien said, crossing his arms.
“I’ll explain,” ChoHakkaimon said, coming to stand next to CatchMamemon and face the group. “I told ya that there’s been a Digimon comin’ round wreckin’ things, yeah? In the past week or so, he’s been a bit more pointed in what he’s been doin’. Targetin’ specific areas of the town rather than just wreckin’ whatever he can get his hands on.” She held an arm out, gesturing over their heads out at the grassy area - the Primary Village. “Primary Villages are where deleted Digimon are reborn into new Digimon. After they hatch, they stay here in the village as babies until they evolve into their in-trainin’ or rookie forms, and then they go off on their own.” She sighed quietly, taking on a more somber tone. “But the Digimon that’s been causin’ trouble has recently started targetin’ this Primary Village. The babies… he’s been…” She cut herself off, raising a hand to her mouth and closing her eyes.
…They all knew what she meant, and none of them saw fit to press any more.
“So… you want us to help you fight?” Anna said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Damien look towards her, as if to say something, but she ignored him.
“Well -” ChoHakkaimon started.
“Oh, no!” CatchMamemon said, holding its hands up. It had listened to ChoHakkaimon’s entire speech with rapt attention and, at some of the more critical parts, even gasped as if it was hearing all this for the first time.
Not the roundest egg in the coop (or Primary Village), indeed.
“We can’t fight,” it continued, waving its arms around to dispel the very notion. “We’re not suited for that.”
“I’m -” ChoHakkaimon tried again, but she was once more cut off by her companion.
“We can’t fight. We need you to fight it for us. It’ll be easy. Please?” It held its hands out in a pleading gesture, and Anna tilted her head at it. It locked eyes with her and did its best impression of puppy-dog eyes, though it was very limited by its simplistic facial features.
“One question,” Damien said. “This Digimon that’s been wrecking shit. Are its eyes white?”
CatchMamemon visibly paled, even without flesh or any sort of blood flow, and looked to ChoHakkaimon. She met its gaze evenly, looking almost curious, and then back at the group. “When we first saw it, no,” she said, and something in Anna’s stomach flipped over. “But within the past week or so… yes. It’s weird. I’ve never seen anythin’ like it.”
“Great, okay,” Damien said, reaching over to grab Anna’s arm and begin to pull her away. “We’re done here. Sorry for your problem, but we can’t -”
“Get off of me,” Anna hissed, wrestling free of his grip. He looked confused and sort of annoyed, turning to face her with a pinched brow and sour expression. She stood resolute against his disdain, her fists clenched at her sides.
“It’s manic,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and as if Anna hadn’t heard ChoHakkaimon when she’d said it. “We’re in no place to help them.”
“Yes we are!” Anna said. She pointed down at Bunny, standing next to her, one paw placed delicately on her leg. “If it was just you and me, of course not, but Bunny can fight! We can do this!”
Damien sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Excuse us,” he said to ChoHakkaimon and CatchMamemon, and then gestured for Anna and Bunny to follow him as he stepped away. The two of them begrudgingly followed him, Anna really not looking forward to this conversation but preparing to back both herself and Bunny up to the best of her ability.
If only Mabel were here -
She can’t do anything. I can’t let her take control. She’d go mad with power.
Damien stopped a short ways away, turning on his heel to face Anna and Bunny. Anna cast a glance over her shoulder to see ChoHakkaimon and CatchMamemon speaking to each other quietly as well.
She wondered briefly what it was that they were talking about. If they were disappointed that it was the three of them who’d shown up to help. If they were scared about them not being able to do anything.
“Do I need to repeat myself?” Damien said, cutting into her train of thought and straight to the point. “Bunny has evolved exactly once, and only to champion. If this Digimon is an ultimate level, and I’m pretty sure it is, she probably can’t take it on alone.”
“Maybe it’s not,” Anna said, but she realized as she said it that it wasn’t likely.
Damien knew this too. “If it was a champion, CatchMamemon and ChoHakkaimon would have taken care of it already.” He paused. “No, wait. ChoHakkaimon would have. CatchMamemon looks like it’s never considered even hurting a fly. My point still stands.”
“They just said they can’t fight,” Bunny said quietly.
“And I’m pretty sure they’re lying,” Damien shot back. “Either they’ve tried to fight back and failed because it’s too powerful, or they haven’t tried to fight back because it’s too powerful. That’s why they need someone else’s help.”
“Then let’s be that someone,” Anna said.
They had to do something, right? The Digimon had been attacking babies. ChoHakkaimon hadn’t even been able to vocalize it, and CatchMamemon… wasn’t very bright, but obviously cared a lot about the village if it was asking for their help.
They were desperate at this point, Anna could tell. How many other Digimon had passed through and barely spared them even a second glance? Heard them out, at the very least?
A full week of this strange Digimon attacking the Primary Village, and who knew how much longer before that he’d been terrorizing the townsfolk.
Anna shook her head out. “We have to do something,” she said, looking up at Damien - pleading with him. “We’re here in this world to save it. To help people. We need to do something.”
“We’re of zero use here,” he said, and Anna rolled her eyes.
“Then you leave,” she snapped. “Bunny and I will stay here and you can go do whatever you want to do.”
Damien’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t leave you,” he said. “But we can’t do anything here. I can’t do anything here.”
“You don’t have to,” Anna said, and Damien breathed out slowly.
“I can’t protect you if something happens to you.” He looked down at Bunny, and for a moment his expression faltered, but he quickly straightened himself out. “You’re on your own here. Are you actually okay with that?”
Anna nodded. Down at her feet, Bunny did the same, and Damien’s gaze flicked between the two of them a few times.
“It’s going to be a tough fight,” he said. “I hope you’re prepared for it.”
“We don’t have to fight,” Anna said. “We can talk to it, or ask if it needs something, or -”
“There is nothing else we can do,” Damien said, softer than Anna had expected. He didn’t sound sympathetic, exactly, but something at least akin to that. “Manic Digimon are controlled by the archangel. He wants to kill us. He’s not going to stop controlling them just because we ask him to. The only thing we - you - can do is fight.”
Anna knew, deep in her heart, that it was true. She didn’t like it, not one bit, but she knew it was true. She knew the hopes of Bunny being able to fight off an ultimate level were slim at best and zero at worst. She knew that they didn’t stand any real chance against it.
She knew they’d only be prolonging the inevitable.
But she’d always been an optimist. Even with everything she’d been through, everything that had happened to her in her life… She always tried to look on the bright side, even when the darkness called louder to her.
It was pretty damn loud right now, but she ignored it.
She looked down at Bunny, still standing next to her. They shared a look; Anna nodded at her, and Bunny smiled.
Anna looked back up at Damien and lifted her chin. “Then we fight.”
Outside the gateway to the Primary Village, Anna, Bunny, and Damien stood waiting for the Digimon to appear.
Bunny was at the front of their little trio, facing down the street and ready for whenever the Digimon would appear. She wasn’t exactly in a defensive pose - Anna didn’t think she’d even be able to pull one off - but she certainly looked like she’d be ready to leap into action whenever she needed to. Slightly behind her, Anna herself stood, digivice in hand as she, too, prepared herself for the fight. Damien stood with his hands in his pockets closer to the gateway, but not far away from Anna and Bunny.
It was evening now; the first stars were blinking into view in the darkening sky, painted orange and pink and soft violet by the setting sun. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. It was a beautiful clear night; it would have been perfect, if not for the fact that they were currently waiting to fight off a Digimon that they likely weren’t any match for.
After giving in to Anna and Bunny’s stubbornness, Damien had made a quick group call on his digivice to let the others know where they were. He hadn’t gone into details, for which Anna was grateful (as Ezra likely would have demanded that she not fight), simply told them that they were in Toy Town waiting for them. It would likely be a while until they showed up - just enough time to get the fight over with.
Hopefully.
When they’d returned to CatchMamemon and ChoHakkaimon, the latter had seemed a bit nervous. She didn’t say anything about it, and even though Anna had tried asking her about it, she’d waved it away, saying she was just anxious about the Digimon. She and CatchMamemon had been very grateful for their help, and had led them just outside the entrance to the village.
Both of them were with the group now, flanking them on either side. ChoHakkaimon stood with her rake over her shoulder, looking down at her claws as if inspecting her manicure, while CatchMamemon was fidgeting with its hands. It seemed as if it couldn’t bear to be still - whether it was fiddling with the joysticks, moving its hands around, or spinning in circles, it always had to be doing something.
It was a little distracting, but it was fine. Anna faced away from it so she didn’t have to see the movement out of the corner of her eyes.
But of course, her peace didn’t last for long.
“I’m baaaaack,” Mabel called out as she entered the room. She flopped down on the couch next to Anna, looking very pleased with herself.
Anna resisted a sigh. “How was The Void,” she asked, actually having the good will to humor her for once. She didn’t have anything else to do, after all.
Mabel grinned. “Would you believe me if I told you we have a Bunny?”
For a moment Anna felt something almost… excited? hopeful? rise up within her, and then she remembered she was speaking to Mabel. She gave her a dead-eyed stare. “No.”
“Good, because we don’t,” Mabel said, and Anna rolled her eyes. “Though wouldn’t that be cool. I could have my very own partner just like you do. What are you doing right now?”
“Waiting for a Digimon to show up. He’s been attacking the residents of the town and we’re going to stop him.” Anna looked down at her digivice, still clutched in her hand, and twirled it around. Hopefully it would be able to… “Bunny’s going to kick his ass.”
“Ooooh, I’m intrigued,” Mabel cooed, leaning towards Anna with her chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees. “I think you should let me kick his ass too.”
“You’re forgetting that we’re in the body of an eleven year old girl whose only strength is in her upper body,” Anna said, gesturing at herself as she did. “Even if you’re a little older and stronger than that, our body isn’t. You’d get us killed and then we’d both be dead.”
“Yes, that’s typically how killing works.” Mabel sighed and sat back, draping her arms over the back of the couch. “Well, if you won’t let me fight, I guess it’ll be enough to watch Bunny.”
Anna shook her head out, looking over at ChoHakkaimon. She didn’t seem to be aware of Anna’s gaze; she watched the pig woman as she continued looking down at her claws, brow furrowed and mouth moving. …Mumbling to herself. Anna had never been good at reading lips, but she could have sworn she saw her mouth the words “dangerous” and “stupid”.
Did she think their plan was too dangerous? A stupid idea? Why hadn’t she said anything?
Or was she talking about something else…?
“To be fair, it is pretty stupid,” Mabel said with a grin. “You’re probably gonna get your ass kicked.”
“Shut up,” Anna said.
“Y’know,” Damien said, reaching his arms up to place his hands behind his head. “The longer we wait around for this guy, the more concerned I get about him. Like he’s gathering power or something.” He sighed. “Fucking stupid, I know, but I can’t help but feel like he’s… nevermind. I dunno.”
“He usually shows up at night,” ChoHakkaimon said, finally looking up at them. “With each appearance, he’s been showin’ up earlier and earlier in the evenin’, so he’ll probably be here soon.”
CatchMamemon nodded in agreement. “We assume he prefers the cover of night. Less Digimon awake to fend him off.”
“Fun,” Damien said, sounding like he was not having fun. He looked out at the sky, shielding his face with a hand. “Suppose it’s too late to call for backup.”
This got ChoHakkaimon and CatchMamemon’s attention real quick. “Backup?” CatchMamemon asked, floating closer to them, while ChoHakkaimon looked more apprehensive. “What sort of backup?”
Anna, Damien, and Bunny all shared a look. The way CatchMamemon was so intrigued by that was… unnerving, to say the very least. “Our friends,” Damien said, making a small gesture for Anna and Bunny to stay quiet. “We were supposed to meet up with them later. We figured we could handle the fight without them, though.”
“Well, the more the merrier,” CatchMamemon said. It leaned down closer to Damien, not exactly eye level but a little closer, at least. “Why say no to more help?”
ChoHakkaimon frowned, but said nothing.
“Cause they’ll just get their asses kicked as well,” Mabel said. It took all of Anna’s inner strength not to shove her off the couch.
“They’re a bit too far away at this point,” Damien said, taking a step back. “We’ll regroup with them after the battle.”
“It’s just one Digimon,” Anna said, forgoing Damien’s advice in favor of defending her partner. “Bunny can take him on. The others might be able to help a little bit, but Bunny’s perfectly strong.” Her partner nodded fiercely, looking like she didn’t entirely believe it but was doing her best to pretend she did.
“He was too strong for CatchMamemon and I,” ChoHakkaimon said, but she sounded… unsure of herself. “Help might be nice.”
“Yes, yes!” CatchMamemon said, nodding. “The other humans should come as quickly as possible. You -”
“Hang on,” Damien said sharply, pulling himself up. He glared at CatchMamemon, crossing his arms across his chest. “Did you say humans?”
“Uh oh,” Mabel whispered.
For a few too-long seconds, CatchMamemon was deadly silent. It looked over at ChoHakkaimon worriedly, and she raised her hands as if to say “not my problem”. It blinked rapidly a few times, looking down at Damien, Anna, and Bunny, and then grinned nervously.
“Yes?” it said. “You are humans. I would assume your friends are also humans?”
“We just said that our ‘friends’ would be able to help us fight,” Damien said, eyes narrowing. “And you know that humans can’t fight.”
“I can,” Mabel said, and as if to prove her point, she balled her hands into fists, punching at the air ineffectually. “Tell that Digimon to come and try to take me!”
“Shut up,” Anna said again.
Anna was having a really, really bad feeling about this. She looked over her shoulder at ChoHakkaimon, frowning, and caught her eye. ChoHakkaimon smiled sadly, lifting her arms in a shrug and then turning back to CatchMamemon.
“Maybe there are humans that can fight?” CatchMamemon was obviously scrambling for excuses and explanations, and as it blabbed on and on, the slot machine on the front of its UFO was spinning like crazy, stopping and displaying numbers and symbols for only a few seconds before they began to roll again. “I don’t know much about humans, I just thought, maybe you had human friends, since you’re humans, and -”
“How did you know that there’s more humans,” Damien said, voice dangerously quiet.
It wouldn’t have been an unreasonable conclusion to jump to - they were humans lost in the Digital World, they had friends they were traveling with, it was safe to assume that those friends were humans. But with the way CatchMamemon had reacted to them questioning it, and with how intent it was on the other humans coming to join them…
Something was at play here.
ChoHakkaimon sighed, long and loud and despairing, and stepped forward to knock her knuckles against CatchMamemon’s UFO. “Archangels above, Catchy,” she said, and Damien - almost imperceptibly, but Anna was observant - flinched upon hearing that first word. “You’re the worst liar in town. Maybe on the whole of File Island.” CatchMamemon deflated, its slot machine finally whirring to a stop and displaying three 0’s.
“Critical fail,” Mabel said, fake-moping, and she sighed. “This guy is weird. I’m a better liar than it. I bet if we had a lying contest -”
“Oh my god, shut up,” Anna said.
ChoHakkaimon looked at the group and gave them an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t wanna go along with it, but… the Digimon actually showed up last week and made a deal with Catchy. Said that he’d spare the rest of the babies in the village if Catchy gave him the humans. Obviously we haven’t had humans in the town until today, and we assumed that you were the only ones, but…” She trailed off, waving a hoof around. “If there’s more, then he’s not going to be very happy.”
“Motherfuckers,” Damien hissed, taking a step towards the two of them. CatchMamemon lifted its arms - its actual arms, not the mechanical ones - to cover its eyes, while ChoHakkaimon simply stared Damien down as he approached, making no moves.
If he had anything else he was going to say, he didn’t get to. From behind the group, they heard the sound of something - footsteps - alighting on pavement, and then heading towards them.
They whipped around to face it, and were greeted by a tall humanoid Digimon, very befitting of their current location indeed.
He was a jester, through and through. He wore forest-green tights and a purple coat with puffy shoulders and cuffed sleeves over a white shirt. The inside of his coat was bright red, and on the end of each of its coattails was a golden bell. Clasping this coat together so that it didn’t fall off his shoulders was a golden sun, shining in the dying light of the real sun. The shoes on his feet were large and curved upwards, looking as if they had sharp ends. A stark white face, adorned with typical clown makeup, matched his stark white eye - and yes, it was eye, singular. His left eye was covered by a long stretch of black fabric, too long for just his head, and its two ends trailed off in the air behind him, each one sporting a bell on the end just like his coattails.
Most strikingly, he carried a large black-and-red scythe, twirling it around as he approached. Second most strikingly, the large jester hat on his head (the base of which was a golden crown) was half blue and half red with black accents. The blue side had a tiny blue star at the tip, while the red side had a yellow moon. This, paired with the sun on his chest…
It felt very thematically fitting.
“Me and you,” Mabel said, pointing.
…Case in point.
Anna lifted her digivice, hoped that she’d selected the right option, and pointed it right at the new Digimon.
“Jokermon,” it read out, and Jokermon blinked in surprise. “Ultimate level demon man Digimon. It will suddenly appear on the battlefield, bringing down Digimon that are key to the tide of the battle with a blow from their blind spot, deciding the outcome of the battle.”
Well, good thing her digivice worked.
Jokermon sneered, turning his attention from Anna to CatchMamemon. “I told you to give me the humans. All of them. Not just two.”
“Three,” Mabel said, making a tsk noise. “Seriously. Is he blind?”
“I didn’t know there were more!” CatchMamemon squeaked, diving to hide behind ChoHakkaimon. It was practically trembling. “These are the only two that showed up! I tried to get them to call the others, but -”
“I’m disappointed in you,” Jokermon said, completely ignoring CatchMamemon. He spun his scythe around in his hand, then gripped it tightly, drawing himself taller. “
Mabel’s eyes widened. “Oh, that’s not good.”
Without another word, Jokermon dashed forward, the blade of his scythe glowing red as he approached CatchMamemon. The group scattered, getting out of his way, but CatchMamemon - having covered its eyes upon ducking behind ChoHakkaimon - didn’t see it coming.
The attack hit true, the red glow congregating upon the point of impact and dissipating in a flicker as CatchMamemon wailed in pain and tumbled backward. Jokermon hopped backward, standing on one foot and blowing imaginary steam off of his scythe, obviously mocking them.
Anna clenched her fists.
“Catchy!” ChoHakkaimon cried, running to her friend’s side. She turned angry eyes upon Jokermon, picking her rake up and pointing it directly at him. “
He side-stepped her, but she reached her rake out and caught him across the chest, knocking him to the ground. She spun on her heel and pummeled him with her rake again, crushing him appallingly flat. Jokermon growled, leaping to his feet and striking out with his scythe.
“I’m not here for you,” he spat, turning to face the others even as ChoHakkaimon got to her knees behind him. He pointed his scythe directly at Anna and Damien. “I’m here for them.
From beneath Anna and Damien’s feet, a glowing purple circle began to expand. Within the circle were patterns and symbols of all sorts - some Digicode, some Digimoji, some that Anna had never seen before. The circle began to glow black, and then smoke began to rise from it, and then -
“Get out of the way,” Mabel said, much too casually.
Light shot up from the lines of the symbols, striking anything in their path. Damien and Anna scrambled to get out of the circle, and they mostly succeeded, but a few of the beams hit Anna in the arm and she cried out in pain, falling to the ground.
Where the attack had hit her was a lingering purple glow; as she looked at it, the glow faded, revealing a deep gash that began to drip blood.
It hurt a lot.
Ezra’s going to kill me for this.
“Yeah, probably,” Mabel said, stretching her arms above her head.
Not helpful.
“
Bunny’s voice snapped Anna back to the present, looking up just in time to see her running toward Jokermon, the end of her antenna beginning to glow white. She shot the orb of light directly into Jokermon’s chest, where it dissipated harmlessly.
Jokermon chuckled upon seeing this, raising his eyebrow down at Bunny. “Is that all you’ve got?
He swept his scythe down at her, catching her unawares across the feet. She was flung into the air, arcing toward a spot a few feet away from Anna - who ran directly to her partner, catching her from midair and quickly setting her back down.
“Lucky catch.”
Behind them, Jokermon grumbled something under his breath, and Anna turned around to see him frowning. He didn’t say anything, simply slashed out at ChoHakkaimon as she ran towards him from behind, knocking her back down on the ground.
“Bunny,” Damien said, drawing her and Anna’s attention toward him. “Are you sure about this?”
Bunny furrowed her brow, opening and closing her mouth a few times, granted the opening by ChoHakkaimon attempting to hit Jokermon with another Home Run Blast. Eventually she breathed deeply and nodded, turning back to Jokermon and Anna with a new fire in her eyes.
“
His scythe began to glow again, and he ran straight for Anna. “
There was barely a full second for her to get out of the way before he reached her, so it sure was lucky that at that moment, Bunny began to glow white, Anna’s digivice began to speak, and Bunny leapt directly in Jokermon’s path.
“Evolution engaged. Please do not turn off the phone while evolution is in progress.”
In moments, Bunny grew into her champion form, grabbing Anna and rolling out of the way of Jokermon’s attack. She deposited Anna on the ground a few feet away and checked her over for any injuries (thankfully none) before jumping into battle with Jokermon.
“
“She did it!” Mabel cheered, standing up and clapping. Anna reached over and tugged her back down onto the couch. Mabel stuck her tongue out, and Anna shoved her over onto her side. Now was not the time for -
“
Exactly.
Jokermon summoned his magic circle underneath Bunny just as she leapt back from her attack. Her bombs slammed into his chest and faded away, leaving him a little soggy but entirely unharmed.
Bunny, on the other hand, was caught off guard by Jokermon’s attack. She yelped and hopped out of range of the circle, but not before a few of the beams of light hit her in her legs and back. She shook herself out, flexing the protrusions on her back and aiming them at Jokermon. “
ChoHakkaimon jumped back over to Anna and Damien’s side, kneeling down next to CatchMamemon once more. “I’m fine,” CatchMamemon insisted, pushing itself up with its mechanical arms, but ChoHakkaimon did not leave its side.
She looked over her shoulder at Anna. “Is your friend gonna be able to take him on?”
Anna swallowed the lump growing in her throat and nodded. “Yeah,” she said lamely. “She’ll be fine.”
“I’ll stay here and keep an eye on it,” ChoHakkaimon said, inclining her head toward CatchMamemon. “You do your best. Try not to get hit.”
“Great, we’ll keep that in mind,” Damien said, and Anna nodded. Damien looked down at her. “Are -”
“Oh my god, stop asking me if she’s going to be able to evolve,” Anna said, balling her hands into fists. “I don’t know. Okay? I don’t know.” She squeezed her eyes shut, greeted by a slightly sympathetic look from Mabel, and then opened them again because wow she really did not want pity from Mabel of all people right now.
She shook her head out and ran towards Bunny and Jokermon, still fighting a bit further down the street. She heard Damien follow her but ignored him, focusing entirely on Bunny and heading directly for her side.
Jokermon threw Bunny backward with a swing of his scythe, sending her practically crashing into Anna behind her. Anna jumped to the side as Bunny tumbled to a stop and then sprang back up on her feet, her fists already beginning to swirl with water. “
Both of the bombs hit Jokermon in the face, and he reached a hand up to wipe the water out of his eye. He glared down at Bunny, his scythe already beginning to glow bright red. “
He aimed for Anna instead.
“Oh fuck,” Mabel said, and if Anna were not moments away from literally dying she would have told her to mind her language, but she didn’t have the opportunity because, again, moments away from literally dying.
But - once again - it was not Anna who took his attack head-on.
Bunny dove in front of Anna, and the scythe hit her instead. She cried out and rolled to the side, shoving herself to her feet and readying her protrusions. “
The icicles once more impacted Jokermon and once more had little effect. He smiled down at Bunny. “I’m not here for you,” he said. “I just need your little humans.”
“You’re going to have to go through me,” Bunny growled, glaring up at him.
Jokermon raised his eyebrow. “Not exactly.
He jumped into the air, doing a (frankly unnecessary) somersault and landing behind Bunny in front of Anna. His scythe glowed red and he swung it through the air; instead of hitting Anna with it, the glow on the blade congealed into an energy blade that shot straight for her. She ducked underneath it, just barely avoiding having it slice her head off.
Jokermon curled his lip. “
“
Jokermon rolled his eyes and halted his attack, instead turning to sweep Bunny’s feet out from under her with his scythe. She landed on the ground with a thud and stood up on wobbly legs, but before she could move, Jokermon reached his scythe over and placed it against her chest, shoving her back down onto the ground, held in place by the blade.
“My, my,” Jokermon mused, looking down at Bunny. “You’re awfully attached.”
“Of course she is,” Anna said, trying to still her trembling fingers. She tightened her hold on her digivice. “Of course we’re attached. We’re partners.”
“Shut up,” Jokermon growled, the amusement immediately gone from his voice. He swept his scythe, sending Bunny flying away and sprawling on the ground as he rounded on Anna again. Anna took a few steps back, bumping into Damien behind her, who grabbed her shoulders and moved to stand beside her.
“Ooh, he’s mad,” Mabel said, being incredibly unhelpful as always.
Jokermon pointed a finger down at Anna, then to Bunny off to the side, where she was pushing herself back up on her feet. “You don’t know what that word means,” he spat. “You don’t get to call yourselves partners.”
“Why not?” Anna said. “We are partners. We have the digivice -”
“Oh, boo to the digivice,” Jokermon said, waving a hand about in dismissal. “That doesn’t mean anything. If I were able to, I would destroy it right here and now, and then you’d both be dead, and then what would your partnership mean? Nothing, that’s what.”
Anna blinked, a pit forming in the bottom of her stomach. The digivice - what? “What do you mean?”
Mabel was uncharacteristically quiet. Anna didn’t have the time nor the chance to get a good look at her face.
Jokermon didn’t answer, whether from not hearing Anna or not caring was hard to tell. Bunny had gotten up by now, and made to fire another attack at Jokermon, but he reached out and knocked her back to the ground before she could. Anna gritted her teeth against the urge to reach out to her partner - partner?… - but she remained where she stood, not wanting to risk becoming Jokermon’s next target.
Jokermon stared down at Bunny. “This girl isn’t your partner,” he said, his voice softer than before. “She’s just using you. Once she’s done everything she needs to do, once she gets to go back home, it’ll be like you never existed. Like your partnership meant nothing.”
“That’s not true,” Bunny said, but her voice was weak, and Jokermon ignored her. Again Anna got that cold feeling in her gut, and she swallowed hard, gaze never leaving Bunny’s face.
“You’re a pawn in a game and she’s the player,” Jokermon continued. “You don’t mean anything to her. She’s going to go back to her world and she’s going to realize how much she hates you and then she’ll kill you. And I have a feeling you won’t come back from that.”
“What the fuck are you going on about,” Damien said, stepping forward and immediately attracting Jokermon’s attention. The clown narrowed his eyes but Damien did not falter, even as Jokermon left Bunny where she lay in favor of turning to Damien.
“You’re telling us that we don’t know anything about being partners?” Damien scoffed, shaking his head. “Who do you even think you are? If you know so much about it, then where’s your partner? When did you save the world?”
“Damien,” Anna said, tugging on his sleeve, trying to get him to turn around, to stand down, anything, “I don’t think this is -”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jokermon said then, in a voice that was not his own.
Both Anna and Damien halted in their tracks. Jokermon seemed unfazed, almost like he was unaware of what was happening - but was it really him, still? The voice was rough, almost like whoever was speaking was being filtered by something.
Anna’s eyes narrowed.
Jokermon shook himself out, looking for a moment like he wasn’t sure where he was, but then he looked around at the humans and Digimon around him and he sneered. “What was that,” he hissed. He sounded normal again. Anna wasn’t sure whether that was better or not. He looked around frantically, his eyes settling on Bunny and alighting with fury. “You.”
He raised his scythe high into the air, the red glow blindingly bright against the dark sky. He glowered down at Bunny, and if Anna hadn’t looked any closer, she wouldn’t have noticed that he looked scared.
That was a new one.
She didn’t even think. She didn’t have the time to. She ran forward, planting her feet firmly in between Bunny on the ground and Jokermon above her, and for a moment his grip on his scythe faltered.
He tightened his fingers around it. “Are you stupid?”
“Yes,” Mabel said. She sounded scared too.
Anna spread her arms out, her digivice still gripped in her right hand. “No. I won’t let you hurt Bunny.”
Jokermon regarded her for a few moments, his white eye almost unblinking. “You’ll die,” he said. “Are you sure you’re happy with that?”
Happy?
That was a word she’d done a lot of thinking about over the past week.
Just a few days before she’d come to this world, she’d received a text on her phone from an unknown number. There hadn’t even been a number - it had literally just said “unknown”.
She knew better than to reply to it - her parents had drilled it into her head ever since she’d had access to the internet. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t answer any question anyone ever asks you no matter what it may be. Everyone is out to hurt you. There is nobody good in this world.
But it had been so tempting.
“Are you happy in your life?”, it had said.
No. Easy question, easy answer.
Oh, sure, she’d had happy moments. She wasn’t that monumentally depressed to the point where she never felt even at least a fleeting sense of joy. But she wasn’t consistently happy, and she certainly wasn’t happy with her life.
How long ago was the last time she had been? Years at this point, probably. In fact, she could probably pinpoint the exact day she stopped being happy. Exact night, really.
Creeping down the hallway when she couldn’t sleep. Her parents talking in the other room. Being too shy to announce her presence and instead listening in on their conversation even though she knew she shouldn’t.
Hearing all of it.
Isn’t it better this way?
We have to tell them eventually.
Just give her a bit longer.
She’s nothing like her.
Maybe in time she’ll be more like -
Funny how, even years later, she could recall it word for word.
Anna wasn’t happy. She hadn’t been happy in a long time.
She wanted to say that to the stranger. She didn’t know why; she just had a strange desire to tell them exactly what was wrong with her life. They wouldn’t be able to help her with any of it - nobody ever had, not even those who were supposed to - but there was some sort of ease, in a sense, in telling a complete stranger all of her problems. They wouldn’t have any expectations for her. They wouldn’t even have to respond. They probably wouldn’t respond, honestly.
But she didn’t answer. She knew better. She had to be perfect - she couldn’t risk her safety.
…That’s what she told herself for the first three days, at least. And then, well… her curiosity got the better of her and she responded. Her parents would never know. She’d delete the texts immediately afterward. That way there’d be no proof.
She never got the chance, obviously. Apparently that simple “no” was enough for whoever (or whatever) was on the other side.
Anna had hit send and then she was in this world.
She’d told them the truth. She wasn’t happy in her life. She’d seen no reason to lie to them.
But was it true now, was the question. Was she still unhappy? Did she still feel like she’d never amount to what everyone wanted of her? Did she still wish she’d never woken up that one fateful night?
Was she still trying to be like Mabel?
She could never be like her. She knew that. Not even just because of her own inability, but -
But.
But here in this world where nobody expected anything of her other than the vaguest thing - “saving the world” - it was freeing, honestly. Nobody expected her to be perfect. That was an impossible thing to ask of anyone and she had known that all her life but she’d still striven for perfection even though it had taken everything out of her. Some days she didn’t even know who she was because of it. If she wasn’t perfect, then who was she? Who was “Anna”?
Where did Mabel end and Anna begin?
She’d been a shadow hanging over Anna’s head all her life. Everything she did was because it was what she would have done.
(And having her living in her head certainly didn’t help.)
But she didn’t have to do that in the Digital World. None of the Digimon cared if she wasn’t who her parents wanted her to be. None of the other humans - not even Ezra - knew anything of the ghost guiding her, both literally and metaphorically.
Here, she was allowed to just be Anna.
And… it made her really happy, honestly.
“Yes,” she said to Jokermon, lifting her head. “But I’m not going to die.”
I am happy.
Next to her on the couch, she sensed Mabel smile.
Jokermon took a step back, as if preparing to attack her, but before he could, in her hand, Anna’s digivice beeped and vibrated.
“Ultimate evolution engaged. Please do not turn off the digivice while evolution is in progress.”
“Not again,” Jokermon hissed, but he was drowned out by an expanding white glow coming from Bunny, behind Anna.
She turned around just in time to see the light burst apart, revealing Bunny’s - her partner’s - new form.
“
Her digivice spoke again. “Crescemon. Ultimate level demon man Digimon. It excels in battling elegantly, and its power is said to double when it is exposed to moonlight.”
Anna looked up at the sky - now dark as ink, stars speckling the surface - and saw a full moon.
She smiled.
Bunny stood much taller now, easily almost three times Anna’s height. A metal mask sat over her face, matching the silver armor she wore over her chest, forearms, and lower legs. The moon markings on her thighs remained, as did her gelatinous purple abdomen, but her large ears and her antenna were gone, only the smaller feelers remaining. Two hennin-like protrusions, complete with yellow ribbons trailing from their ends, extended from the top of her mask, looking like ears - and of course, she still had the same protrusions on her back that she did as Lekismon. In her right hand, she held a long silver scythe, the end shaped like a crescent moon; in the left, she held a crescent moon shield. Both of these weapons had small moon face emblems on their surfaces, just like the one she had worn around her neck in her previous forms.
She slammed the end of her scythe into the ground and raised her shield, pointing at Jokermon. “Leave my partner alone.”
Wow, she was a lot more intimidating in this form.
Jokermon laughed once, lifting his own scythe. “As they say, let the show begin.”
“You should probably get out of here,” Mabel said, right as Jokermon and Bunny leapt back into battle.
Anna backpedaled until she was standing next to Damien again. He gently bumped against her shoulder, and she looked up at him to see him smiling. Anna smiled back.
“
She hopped over it, seeming to hover in the air for a few moments before alighting. “
He stumbled backward, dropping to one knee but quickly pushing himself back up. “
She took a step backward, lifting her shield and placing her scythe atop it, facing towards Jokermon. Both weapons began to glow bright white and combined into what looked like a large crossbow; Bunny wasted no time. “
The crossbow shot a massive arrow of white and purple ice at Jokermon. When it impacted (and it did), it splintered into tiny shards, which then turned around to home in on Jokermon once more.
Jokermon brushed himself off, trying to appear unharmed but failing miserably, as evidenced by him tripping over his own feet. He didn’t even stand back up before he called out “
It was larger this time than ever before, and though it grew slower than it had the last time (presumably due to its size), the energy it swirled and smoked with was darker yet brighter than ever before. The beams shot up into Bunny and then arced around, aiming at anything nearby. Damien grabbed Anna and dove to the ground, taking care not to land directly on top of her (thankfully), and they managed to avoid most of the beams.
Anna blinked and rubbed her eyes, watching Bunny as she stepped toward Jokermon, still on the ground. “You know you are losing,” Bunny said, using her scythe to lift Jokermon’s chin and force him to look at her. “Tell me. Who is the archangel you serve?”
Jokermon coughed a laugh, grinning wickedly. “You keep calling him that,” he said, giggling as he spoke. “Surely you should know by now that he doesn’t like that. I’d advise you to keep that word out of your mouth.”
“Oh, just like I’d advise you not to speak on matters you do not know of,” Bunny said harshly, pressing Jokermon down. “You know not of partnership and the bond it entails. Keep your mouths shut from now on or we will not be so merciful.”
Anna definitely noticed her use of mouths, plural.
Jokermon giggled again. “You call this mercy?” He swept his arms out, then gestured down at himself. “While you pin me down with your weapon and tell me not to speak of things that he is very well versed in.”
…Hmm.
Bunny’s eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch, and, likewise, the pressure against Jokermon’s neck let up just a fraction of a pound. Jokermon immediately leapt up, knocking Bunny aside and grabbing his scythe where it lay a few yards away. He rounded on Bunny, once more tossing her aside with a sweep of his scythe. “
“
Jokermon growled as her arrow and its subsequent shards hit him in the chest and face, brushing them away with his arm. “A valiant effort to question me,” he said, half-bowing as he turned to face Bunny again. “But you should know by now that he doesn’t want us saying too much. Surely you understand.”
“Understand, yes,” Bunny said, nodding. “Respect? Not in the slightest.
She began her dance, leaving faintly-glowing footsteps in her wake and stopping Jokermon dead in his tracks. When she hit him with her scythe at the end of her dance, he stumbled backward and once more fell into a kneeling position.
Bunny pointed her scythe directly at him. “I have one last question for you before I dispose of you. You have only been this way for a week, and yet you were harassing this town long before then. What were your reasons?”
Jokermon snickered. “Just a little bit of fun,” he said. “That’s all it was at first. But when I got this power…” He looked down at his hands, then clenched them into fists. “I had a mission to carry out. It didn’t matter who got in my way.” He smiled up at Bunny. “As it turned out, the exact ones I wanted to come across became the ones standing in my way. But not for much longer.
“
Bunny left behind the magic circle before it could even begin to smoke under her feet, and once more prepared her dance, entrancing Jokermon where he knelt. She slashed her scythe across his face and sent him skidding down the street.
When he got up onto his feet, he did not turn towards her, but rather down the street, and began to run.
“Coward,” Mabel shouted.
“Follow him,” Bunny called, beginning to bound after him, and Anna and Damien quickly followed her, but they (and Jokermon) were stopped in their tracks by an attack from up ahead.
“
Ember came careening around a corner, engulfed in flame and aiming straight for Jokermon. Behind him came Ezra, and then a moment later Ryan and Dare, and then the rest of the group behind them.
Jokermon was shoved backward by Ember’s attack, and as soon as he had backed up, Dare took his place. “
Though a champion’s attacks were clearly no match for him, he was also clearly weakened by his fight with Bunny, and so he crumpled to the ground.
But he righted himself quickly, and faced off against the gathered group of humans and Digimon. “You’ve come right to me,” he said, some sort of glee creeping into his voice that made Anna’s stomach churn. “How fortunate.
“
Bunny dashed in front of Jokermon and started her dance, finishing it quicker than she had before. She slashed out with her scythe once, twice, three times, and then a fourth for good measure.
On the fourth hit, he knelt down for the final time, his arms and legs beginning to pixelate.
He smiled up at Bunny. “You poor fools,” he said, for some reason sounding sympathetic. “You poor partners.”
He exploded into pixels in a flash of light, and a beat later, Bunny, too, began to glow white and shrink down to her rookie form.
Anna ran forward on shaky, sore, uneven legs, and fell onto her knees beside her partner, wrapping her up in her arms. Her partner.
Honestly? Screw whatever the hell Jokermon had been saying. He was wrong. Anna and Bunny were partners, from now till the end, and they always would be.
Nobody could ever take her away from her.
“You sure you’re -”
“I’m getting a very uncomfortable sense of déjà vu,” Anna snapped, staring flatly at Ezra. “I am fine. Trust me.”
“…okay,” he finished, raising an eyebrow down at her but saying nothing more.
Anna sighed, rubbing the back of her neck.
They stood just outside Primary Village. Damien had laid into CatchMamemon and ChoHakkaimon after the fight, berating them for leading them into a trap, but Anna and Moxie had managed to calm him down. CatchMamemon had apologized profusely, going on about how it didn’t have a choice, it just wanted to protect the remaining babies in the village. ChoHakkaimon had been sorry as well, but she explained that she hadn’t even been aware of the plan until she’d led them to CatchMamemon and it told her. Damien seemed a little skeptical, but Anna and Bunny told her it was okay, and thanked her for her help (even if it wasn’t much) in the fight against Jokermon.
As an additional apology, CatchMamemon and ChoHakkaimon went into town to gather up some Cutemon who were still left behind, who had healing powers and were able to tend to Anna’s wounds. …Which Ezra had, expectedly, freaked out about as soon as he’d noticed, even when Anna had tried to push him away and Mabel had suggested she punch him in the face. The Cutemon had already helped her, and she was feeling a lot better; now, they were checking up on some of the others who still had some bad injuries, notably Alex, Harmony, and Ryan.
Which left Anna, Bunny, Ezra, and Ember to their own devices. Bunny and Ember’s devices were Bunny recalling the fight with Jokermon blow for blow and Ember listening intently, cheering her on at certain parts as if he were witnessing the fight firsthand. Anna and Ezra’s devices were Ezra being Ezra and asking Anna every other minute if she was actually okay.
Oh, and not to mention Mabel.
“One of these days you need to tell him to just screw off,” Mabel said. She currently sat backwards on the couch, her arms and upper body draped over the back of it and her wings occasionally fluttering behind her. “You gotta tell him he’s being annoying so that he’ll stop.”
“But that’s mean,” Anna said, sitting normally on the couch like a normal person. Her ears - her white bunny ears - twitched when Mabel groaned and turned around to face Anna, legs crisscrossed in front of her and hands in her lap.
“Who cares? He’s being annoying. He’s treating you like you’re not a human being. You tell him time and time again that you’re fine and he never takes it as a final answer.”
Anna sighed and shook her head. She couldn’t just tell him that he was being annoying, no matter how much she wanted to. She couldn’t. Anna didn’t like being mean.
But she was getting a little sick and tired of it…
“I was perfectly fine,” she said to Ezra, and he blinked over at her. “I had Bunny with me. We wouldn’t have had to fight Jokermon if I hadn’t decided to. And I only decided to because I knew Bunny could do it.” Down at her feet, her partner flicked her ears up at her and smiled softly. Anna returned it. “You don’t have to worry about me so much. I can take care of myself.”
Even if she couldn’t, Mabel certainly could. But she couldn’t exactly tell Ezra that. He couldn’t know.
“I know,” Ezra mumbled, shrugging. “I can’t help it. We were separated for almost two straight days.”
“Not really,” Anna said. It hadn’t been that long. And even if it had been…
“I just worry about you, you know?” he continued, sticking his hands in his pockets. “You’ve never really been on your own like that before.”
“I had Damien with me,” Anna said, but she already felt a cold pit forming in her stomach.
“He doesn’t count,” Ezra said. “Just…” He sighed, shaking his head. “I know I won’t always be around to protect you. I can’t. But I still worry about you when you’re alone.”
“I’m never alone,” she mumbled, and if Ezra heard her, he didn’t say anything.
Probably for the best. She didn’t feel like explaining it right now, anyways. Maybe not ever.
“You have to tell him eventually, though.”
“…I know.”