Hi! I really need to stop posting so much multi-chap drabble stuff...but here we are anyway XD.

This relates to three challenges/prompts I currently have: The Digimon Bingo (prompt Meramon), The What-If Challenge (What if Rika never became friends with Takato and Henry?), and the Dicing-Up Songs Challenge...which will be explained better in a moment. All three are from the Digimon Fanfiction Challenge forums.

Now, in regards to the third challenge...basically, you take a song, and each line from it is a prompt for a poem/drabble/chapter, and it is complete once all lines are used. You can use repeated lines, but you don't have to. In my case, I chose the song Revenge by Chevelle (go check it out on youtube, btw), which has 20 lines, not counting repeats. So there will be a minimum of 20 drabbles for this story. The drabbles themselves will be mostly plot-driven, out of order, and updated erratically, but will form the bigger picture by the end.

With that out of the way, here's the first drabble. The line in italics next to the title is the song line being used.

EDIT: Drabble was expanded to fit the 500-word rule for the Digimon Bingo Challenge.

Disclaimer: If I owned Digimon, Ryo would show up more and have more development in Tamers. Also that awkward juxaposition of the spider Digimon episode and the IceDevimon episode wouldn't have happened.

Data Fragment 1: Death (Crowds and torches fill the air)

"There are others here."

The three figures further studied the crudely-made grave in silence. It was only a large heap of rocks, like the aftermath of a village stoning. On the already-dirty paper on top was a simplistic scrawl of a fiery being, probably a Meramon. Only humans would be sentimental enough to make a monument to decimated data.

Well, Ryo knew he had no right to talk. He was human too. All too human, it seemed. Far too vulnerable to injury, death, and worse. Seeing a grave cut into him like a guillotine. Already his body pained him, a memento of mortality.

Cyberdramon had no such problem. Quickly the Ultimate dragon Digimon grew bored by the pebble pile. He began roaming about, seeking opponents to annihilate and absorb, as always. Death meant nothing to him. For countless beings, he was death, the shameless reaper.

But she, the one who still stood beside Ryo, defied death, logic, destiny even. Her form, so human and vulpine at once, was neither. The shadows of the towering stones around them made her purple armor and silver staff appear almost black.

"Rika…" Ryo began.

The purple fox priestess turned away. "Kizuhamon," she corrected.

Ryo also averted his gaze. "Right, Kizuhamon…"

Kizuhamon glanced back to the grave. "Think that human is still alive?"

Ryo shrugged. "Dunno. Probably not, unless they found their partner fast. Even then there's no guarantee. That Meramon might have been the partner."

There was more silence. Only the wind wailed out its grief.

"Let's go," said Kizuhamon, turning around and walking away.

"Yeah," said Ryo, following.

As they walked away, Cyberdramon soon rejoining them, darkness abruptly soaked the land. There was no sunset or sunrise here, only sudden day and sudden night. There were no seasons. There was no rain. There were only sandstorms in this barren land.

There were other worlds connected to this one, and almost all of them were prettier and more lively. Some were cities, some were jungles, some had only water or only sky. All of them were facsimiles of the real thing, constructed from discarded, broken, and stolen data. There were no more life in the trees than there were in the rocks.

Digimon had life. But it was not the same as human life. Not that it meant they were inferior, stupid creatures: Ryo had too many close shaves to think that. But they were a different kind of life form. They weren't born of flesh and blood. They didn't need to consume nutrition to live. They could not naturally reproduce by themselves. By scientific definition, they weren't alive.

Ryo wondered if that was why Digimon always fought. Why they always tried to reach the real world. Why they wanted humans to raise them. They wanted to prove that they were truly alive, and worthy of the title of life.

But even Ryo, the human, was translated to data here. Just like all the Digimon. So right now, maybe he didn't count as alive either. How could one be alive in the land of death, after all?

IIIIII

So, being a fragment set later in the timeline, this probably leaves more questions than answers XD. As mentioned earlier, it will make more sense as more story fragments come in. Let me know what you think so far :).