FSE

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Jeri crawled out her window to sit on her roof next to Leomon, as she'd done the past couple days. The Beast King was her partner, she was determined; despite having no digivice to prove it, she knew in her soul it was true. Leomon didn't believe it for a moment, but found arguing with the girl either led to a fierce retaliation, the likes of which he'd never seen from such a small creature, or a wave of sadness that compelled him to repent for his opinion. So, over time he gave up on the argument, but his position never wavered. She sat close to him and cuddled up to his massive left arm, which alone outsized her, and while the affectionate nature of the girl was at first off-putting to the champion, he grew to tolerate and, to his chagrin, even mildly enjoy the care and warmth the girl produced in his presence. He often watched her, out of curiosity, he assured himself, not a protective urge or any such nonsense, and noticed her lack of interaction with other humans her age. She rarely spoke when she was around others, save the other tamers, and even so, she often did so with the assistance of her puppet. When she spoke with him, though, the puppet was shelved; instead, she spoke to him as herself, no mask to hide behind.

"Leomon," She began, her voice somewhat soft, but Leomon knew this to be normal. Usually she wasn't as cheery around him, just because she knew she didn't have to be for him to know she was happy, unlike everyone else. If she ever dropped the upbeat tone, others would assume something was wrong. This was her voice, and he was one of the few to hear it often. "We're going to the digital world soon, and I want to go, but the others say that it's dangerous without a partner." She stopped for a moment, pausing to collect her thoughts, "Would... would you come with me even though I don't have a digivice?"

Leomon sighed, deep and hearty. This was the question he'd been asking himself lately, was he to stay with her? He'd already confronted the issue of him sticking around despite the lack of a need to; he had not ties to bind him to this girl, yet he continued to meet her. Why? He couldn't answer, not with honesty. "Jeri, you know that you are not my tamer..." He began, choosing words carefully and finding the effort taxing to his mind. "If I went with you, you would not be able to digivolve me, I would be afraid of not being able to protect you. If you were hurt... I would never forgive myself."

Jeri's eyes misted, not out of sadness of his gentle rejection, but rather out of joy of its contents. The lion had just admitted, albeit indirectly, that he cared for the girl. She'd been waiting for this, a reciprocation of any form to her feelings. He may not have felt as strongly as she, but then even Jeri didn't truly know the extent of her love for the beast. Jeri shut her eyes tight to force back her joyous tears and clutched tighter to Leomon's arm, her right fist balled up as an unnatural warmth began to bloom within it. Jeri's eyes cracked open to find a golden glow flowing from her hand, the heat ever-increasing, yet never painful, never even uncomfortable. It was a comforting heat, like one felt through an embrace with a dear friend, perhaps even a lover. The tears on the edges of Jeri's eyes glistened in the light as she released Leomon and both looked at the solidifying brightness in the young girl's palm. Gold light gave way to matte grey and gold plastic, and a form was finalized as the light began to fade. Tears flowed fully from Jeri's eyes, rivers of joy traveling down her cheeks as she shrieked with joy. Leomon smiled warmly, knowing truly now where his place was.

Jeri had gotten her wish.

(Break)

"It would appear the humans have found a way across." A voice echoed down the spacious hall, reverberating off the apparently acoustically perfect walls. He grinned, having been waiting for this.

"If you come to my house, expect a fight..." he muttered to himself, his large teeth glinting in the low light.

"What are your orders sir? They won't be landing anywhere near us." He perked up at this comment, one he'd not been expecting.

"How far?" This would be another damn problem, as if he hadn't had enough so far. It would be worth it, he knew, but he had no time to think about that, instead he focused on what the voice at the end of the hall replied with.

"Several days travel by foot, and the I/O Streams aren't reliable right now, due to their heavy use by those chasing emergence portals."

"So it's walk for days, or get caught in traffic? Ugh, just kill me now." He thought for a moment, contemplating this new development. "How quickly can we get a unit of five out there?"

"It would depend sir..." After a moment's pause, the voice realized just which five his master meant. "They could be there in a couple days, perhaps quicker."

"Good, tell them to go now, they've just digivolved, so they should have no issue in getting there quickly." He said. The voice chirped in reply and began to leave, but the master spoke up again. "Before you leave... tell them if they don't haul ass, I'm gonna have their ass, understand?"

"Ye-es sir!" The voice shook as it replied, remembering the last time the master had "had someone's ass". If he remembered correctly, the stains never came out of the walls. Despite his strange nature, the master was one to be feared, and everyone knew it.

(Break)

"Here?"

"Yeah, set it up." A Monodramon sighed, looking around. "Quick now, we don't want anyone to see."

"How much time do we have?" A Woodmon, who was helping in the setup, asked.

Monodramon looked to a satyr-like digimon who was carrying a device given to them for just such a purpose. "Couple hours." He replied, scratching behind one of his horns.

"Hurry your asses up then." Monodramon said to the three who were performing the setup. "It takes a while to get to get going, and we need a full split before they jump."

"If we need to go so quick, why don't you help, jackass?" A blue tinted Devimon quipped. "Not like you or lambchops over there are doing anything useful."

"Shut up and work." Came a reply from a Phantomon who was working next to him. "If you'd pay attention, you'd notice that we were the only ones who learned how to put this damn thing together."

"Yeah well..." the Devimon started, but he had no room to complain, as the setup was alright finished.

"I'll get it started." The satyr digimon said, walking to the now fully constructed device. He plugged in the piece he'd been using to watch the time, which sent a ping to the spy who was keeping tabs for them that it was time to come back. A switch was flipped and the structure came to life, a few lights turning red, then green as the machine primed and, after a moment of whirring and cycling, began to fire a black beam into the I/O stream above, splitting it in half. "Are we clear?" The satyr asked as he looked at Monodramon, who was focused on an earpiece and nodded after a moment.

"Yep," he replied. "Stream strengthens back up right where we want it to. We're done here, let's go."

(Break)

Renamon and Raia had healed up sufficiently in the past few days, and since then we'd been waiting for a signal that it was time to go. I'd grown curious about the code again, knowing I wouldn't be able to access it the entire time we were in the digital world, and I'd stumbled upon something strange while looking through it. A couple strange things had happened, like how I'd noticed I couldn't edit Renamon's code in the way I had Raia's. Certain parts in both were locked down to only be edited by the creator, which I obviously wasn't, but there was a part in both that was accessible, but voided out by exception markings, meaning it was written, but not implemented. As I peered through the code, it appeared to access a 7th digivolutionary form, which only existed in a few digimon, one of which wasn't Renamon as a species. Since I'd discovered it, I began to fill it in, as it was incomplete, undoubtedly the reason it was voided. It was difficult work, and consumed time like a wild fire, but after a couple days I'd finished it and removed the void marks, then uploaded it to Raia and Renamon, who, unsurprisingly, felt no significant change.

"So how do we access it?" Raia had asked when I finished.

"Well, I hope we never have to use it at all," I replied, knowing that the only justifiable reason to use it was to fight someone of a similar power, but I continued regardless, just in case we did need it. "But we can access it through biomerging, like the mega form. We'll just have to press past that somehow."

"So you don't know exactly?" Renamon asked. I shook my head, my eyes weary as I answered.

"Nope, all I can see is that it involved biomerging." I said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for bed." I walked past them and crashed on the couch, not wanting to make the extra effort to get to the bedroom.

Raia laughed at me, a bright, happy giggle that warmed me inside, and began pulling on my arm. "Come on, let's get you to bed."

"Good here." I said. "Turn the TV on." Raia sighed, resigning to leave me, and turned on the TV for me. Renamon came over as well and both kneeled to next to me and took turns giving me a goodnight kiss.

"Good night." They each said.

I smiled and replied. "Night girls, see you in the morning, we have a big day tomorrow." They padded off to the bedroom and I lay watching TV as I began to drift off. Faintly, just as I was losing consciousness, I heard a news story come on.

"One month's passing since the disappearance of a local girl has caused search efforts to cease here in Shinjuku." Said the reporter onscreen, but I wasn't listening. "The family could not be reached for comment, so we'll play some file footage from the beginning of the search, one month ago."

Another reporter had come on screen, and the date was roughly that of the time Raia had died, perhaps a couple days after. "I'm here outside the home of a local girl who has gone missing recently." He walked to the door and I slipped from consciousness completely, only catching the last few words. "Hello ma'am, it's my understanding you are Rumiko Nona..."

I woke the next morning and headed out to the park with all of my gear, waiting at Guilmon's little house and gazing at the massive hole he'd dug. Before long the other tamers arrived, along with Kazu, Kenta, and Jeri.

"Jeri, are you sure it's safe for you to come? I mean, Leomon isn't your partner." Takato began, but Jeri just grinned and pulled out a grey form, which was revealed to be a digivice. I smiled, glad she'd gotten it in time.

"I'm a tamer, I can come too." She said. "What about Kazu and Kenta? They don't have partners."

"Why do you think we're coming along?" Kazu said adamantly. "How the heck else are we supposed to find partners if you keep deleting them all."

I chuckled. "Trust me, you wouldn't have wanted any of them. Now, let's get going." I said, jumping into the hole and crawling through it. Behind me I heard Kazu complaining about how "that guy has two partners, but he gets squat." I just chuckled again, focusing on the light in front of me, tensing slightly as I crawled through it.