Chapter Thirteen: A Bloody Checker Set (Moonrise)

December 5th, 2009

Manhattan, New York

Sayo had never owned a dog. She'd had a dog Digimon, before the Gaogamon got too big to just lounge around her house all day and didn't want to devolve anymore. But she'd never had a dog. Pete was determined to be that dog by the looks of things. Thankfully, she was housebroken and lacked paws. She got into just as much trouble as other dogs though, which in its own way was exasperating somehow. Digimon pooped differently, they ate more, and the smell they gave rarely required a bath unless they so desired it. Which was basically whenever she wanted one. So, very inconvenient. She had to deal with that somehow. One way or another.

Of course for the most part, this was tolerable. These days, there were enough Digimon around, partnered and not, that poop bags durable enough to survive the drops were everywhere, and there were capsules of what amounted to digimon kibble. Then again, this was New York, the testing ground for stupid ideas. It was only normal for this to happen.

That didn't mean having Pete sitting in her backpack all day was ideal because it wasn't, really. She was in the shedding phase, which meant blue and white fur went everywhere and she was twitching every five seconds on Sayo's books. It would honestly be easier to just let Koh take care of her. The second Sayo considered that thought, Pete would make every possible effort to make her way into Sayo's lap. It was like the creature was telepathic. Or intuitive. Like Dianamon.

Sayo sighed to herself, the noise barely audible in the clacking and humming of the computers. Come to think of it, that was probably why Pete was so eager to be around and about. Computers and Digimon had a bit of a complex relationship. It wasn't one even she understood despite living there. She patted her back down onto her lap and went back to her mouse. No tablets today. Someone had lost the key to the storage room again. Probably a good thing. Last thing she needed was Pete chewing up a wire. Pete settled and for a while, all she had to think about was the image on screen and the constant presses of undo.

As she saved it, almost an hour later, someone swore at their monitor. She craned her head and closed her processor. Then another voice swore.

"Who the hell tried letting their Digimon in the computer again?"

No one looked at Sayo. She had been there to see what happened to Digimon with Windows 8. But it wasn't from Pete. Pete's already big yellow eyes were twice their size as he looked to the sound of the cursing.

Then a single large eyeball appeared on every screen, a comical and heavy shade of red in the iris. Said iris swiveled about on the screen before it locked on the face of every human. Then, one screen at a time, it narrowed.

Sayo yanked out her USB drive and ran, just in time for something to smash into the opposite wall. She thought she heard someone scream and couldn't quite care. If she cared, she would turn back and that… that simply couldn't happen.

Her arm was burning. Pete had started to squirm. She raised her burning arm to pet her. "It's okay," she soothed. "We'll get out of here. It's okay."

Honestly, she'd just been doing her job. She'd just been doing her job and stopping them, why in the name of the goddess was this happening to her now?"

"We're necessary for balance, you know?"

"We keep the world turning, you see. There are always vices."

"Always."

"Always."

"I wouldn't have done it if you had stuck to indirect interference, instead of active destruction," she muttered, wincing in pain.

"But that is in our nature." Lucemon was ever mercurial. "Even using pieces, we move to the will of sin and the will to sin. In that end, is that not why you pursued us?"

"I pursued you because you led to thousands of slow and painful deaths, a tanking of morale and more than enough other problems."

Lucemon laughed and it was louder somehow. "Well, at least you didn't say it was 'because you had to do it"."

The world washed gray over her eyes for a brief moment. And she saw someone else, a boy that became a tentacled monster. A boy that looked so pitying and knwing and scared.

"Sayo, please," he pleaded. "I don't blame you, no one blames you!"

I do, Lucemon chimed. You didn't even think to ask.

Sayo ignored him, ignored everything, including the awful, heartless voice.

Come, it whispered.

Come hither. Fall to the memories of the lost past. Destroy all that is good about yourself. It must not be good enough.

At another time, Sayo would have scoffed at the melodrama. Meanwhile, Pete just whined all the louder. On another day she would have let the little one loose, let the tiny child do what it did best and fight, as little ones are wont. But she did not, because she, most importantly had no idea what they were fighting in the slightest. And that meant more danger than she was willing to expose herself to at the moment.

"I can't," Sayo insisted softly, sternly. "Because you don't know that, Dagomon. You don't. I don't know that, but I do know this guy will get at people I walk to class near to make me squirm and that's important! I don't want them to die because of me."

"They won't." Pete opened her mouth and yawned at her, somehow there despite the Dark Ocean's existence just popping up from nowhere. The cat-head rubbed at her hands as the little boy squirmed in front of her. There was guilt there, for some reason, something she couldn't put her finger on but-

Boom.

It was a quiet explosion, for something that rocked the entire foundation of this part of her school campus. The pressure bursting out threw her onto wet scraped off grass and into the nearest snow pile as fire licked and snaked into the air, the smoke bursting out in great black clouds.

Too late, Lucemon chirped gleefully in her ears. You were too late, so late, too bad! Look what you've done.

Sayo wanted to run forward, seeing the destruction through a drenched beach, and the Dark Ocean faded as Pete pushed her back and everything faded into wisps melting with pain, with the raw heat of the flames. Sayo struggled for words and breath, hoping and praying for her cell phone to magically appear in her hands. When it did not, she screamed. All of Pete's furs stood on end as the horrible sound seemed to break the sound barrier, pulsing and undulating until Sayo had no voice left and was just a ball of soaked flesh and fabric on the grass. This was what Yagami Hikari made it over to see, Tailmon on one shoulder and fire truck sirens wailing much too far away.

Sayo didn't notice, but Pete did. Pete began to glow the second Hikari reached them, throwing her arms around Sayo like she absolutely needed to do it without question. She might have.

Sayo didn't notice the oversized head and small body in her lap where Pete had been. But Hikari did.

Sayo didn't notice anything for the rest of the day and even into the night.

…

Mirei, as keeper of the Balance, as stability itself, could only watch from this point. Communication was difficult quite normally, for reasons she, in this form could not comprehend. Outside of it it was relatively irrelevant, but still. It could almost be considered frustrating.

All those humans, all of their creations, caught in the flames of revenge.

If she had been able to hear Lucemon, she unfortunately would have had to agree. Sayo was too late. She was too late to regret, too late to understand and comprehend in the way the demons wanted. She had her own ways. She was too late for a whole lot of things but saving her own skin, objectively speaking.

That said, she wasn't too late to create this miracle. The child of darkness had its place, much as the demon lords had their own. It was in the demon lords nature, in the nature of sin, to exist, as far as she knew.

She ran a finger over her tea cup and watched a singular point on one side of her metaphysical quarters. Her cats needed somewhere to steal tuna fish to after all. She waved

Mirei sighed out loud to an empty room, to a room bathed in light so even the most obvious shadow should be obscured. All but her own, of course. "You can come out, young representative."

Small, cautious footsteps formed seemingly from nowhere. But then they slowed. Mochizuki Meiko regarded her with worried, sorrowful eyes, hair tied up in a bun for sleep. Meicoomon sat in her arms, fright and fury etched into her features.

"This is the first time we've met, isn't it?" Mirei leaned on her hand once more. "Chosen of Tenacity."

Meiko swallowed. "Where… where am I?"

"Sleeping, likely. That's what I try to do. I don't tend to be that lucky." She waved her free hand and a spare chair burst into existence. "Please, sit. I merely wish to talk."

Meiko's fingers tightened around her partner, but she settled and obediently sat.

Mirei smiled. It was not a happy expression. "You are aware of the powers you hold, correct?"

Meiko looked at her. "Who are you?"

I love when I get wary intelligence. They trip over themselves. "You and yours know who I am," she replied, watching the way her eyes widened behind the thick frames. "I am looking for a way to avoid a reboot. And I think you are one of the people who will be of some assistance."

"Why?"

Mirei laughed. "Because I do. And there is one other. You have the best way of contacting him. I'm sure Motomiya Daisuke would like to see an old friend again."