...
I felt the fog in my head slowly clear and my consciousness re-emerged. A warm feeling enveloped much of my body as the slight whip of the cool wind touched my arms and legs with its breeze. I let out a slight groan of exertion as I forced myself to get up.
I had a plan for today.
I rubbed my eyes slowly as my eyesight slowly adjusted to my surroundings. I could see the sun begin to quietly rise at the end of the desert claiming its place as the star of the world; the rays of light had barely begun to show itself and the cold of the desert still lingered firmly in my bones making me shiver slightly.
'I may have gotten up too early' I said to myself fighting the urge to go back to bed.
I averted my gaze from the big yellow star to look at the warmth that was pouring off my back. Watch as BlackGarurumon's slow but steady breathing, his dirty jet fur gave off a rather surprising warmth, enough for all of us to sleep almost glued to the big wolf to resist the night's chill.
I watched with a small smile as Herissmon slept between Patamon and Garurumon, hugging both Digimos like pillows.
I blinked twice as I heard a small humming sound, I turned to watch Sora gently stroking Piyomon's feathers as he hummed what seemed to be a lullaby. Letting out a yawn into my hand, I walked over to her as I went over the day's plan.
"Hi Sora" I greeted sleepily as I sat across from her on one of the rubble we were using as chairs around the campfire.
Sora seemed to jump up and down on her seat before looking at me in surprise. "H-Hello, I didn't expect you to be up so early."
"I can get up early too...sometimes" I said with an embarrassed grimace on my face.
We both fell into an awkward, but not uncomfortable silence. I didn't really have many things to talk about with Sora since we didn't have many things in common, of course, it wasn't like I'd known her all my life
I turned my gaze back to the helmeted girl as I hid a grimace and decided to take off my band-aid in one go. "I'll go explore the surroundings a bit."
Sora's movements paused for a moment before she lifted her gaze to scowl at me. She opened her mouth to speak, but I quickly interrupted her by raising my hands appeasingly.
"I won't go far, I just need to stretch my legs a bit, you know? This standing still in one place thing isn't for me" I said interrupting her before she could give me another one of her chicken mama dialogues. "Besides, there must not be many powerful Digimons around here, I mean, this was Etemon's base I doubt they'll dare cross here for a while... or when they find out there's no base or Etemon anymore."
"We have to stay here! We can't expose ourselves to any more Digimons being as we are!" Sora exclaimed before shuddering as he heard Piyomon let out a mutter.
"Someone could come with me if you're so worried about something happening" I said as I scratched my head, Sora's reaction was going pretty much as I expected.
"Absolutely not! No one is leaving this camp until Tai comes back and that's final!"
I opened my mouth to speak, but suddenly my vision was completely obscured making me freeze in my seat.
"Guess who I am~" A familiar voice tickled my right ear making me shiver.
Hiding a smile, I mockingly replied. "The lovely and charismatic...Professor Kamado."
"Oh come on! She's not even here and she's horrible!"
MY vision quickly regained color making me squint for a moment. I turn my head back to see Mimi pouting with her arms crossed in front of each other, I know I'm not the best person to talk about this, but it was quite surprising to see Mimi awake at this hour since she was a pretty heavy sleeper and was a bit slow whenever she woke up.
Internally I wondered how the Digital World affected the growth of our bodies and aging.
"What are you doing up so early Mimi?" I asked instead looking at the cowgirl as if she had grown another head.
"Oh! Well, I've been up for a while, Palmon wanted me to give her a fashion lesson."
Suddenly I noticed Mimi wasn't wearing her usual hat letting her long hair fall down to her back. Not far behind her was Palmon posing with her huge white hat and laughing to herself.
"Oh and Sora! Can I go out for a while? I want to go to a river to wash up! And I really need a bath!" pleaded Mimi as she clasped her hands together in prayer and gave Sora puppy dog eyes.
The girl in the helmet blinked twice before a conflicted grimace appeared on her face for a moment as her gaze shifted from one to the other. She could feel her head spinning round and round trying to say no.....
... but Mimi's puppy dog eyes were just that good.
"Fine" Murmured the redhead defeated by Mimi's puppy dog eyes "But Noah will accompany you and they must be back before the sun goes down!"
I rolled my eyes for a moment as I mentally debated with myself before simply agreeing to the deal. It was better if someone came with me anyway, so I wouldn't have to worry about watching my back now that BlackGarurumon needed to recover.
And I wouldn't have to put up with Sora or Matt badmouthing each other behind their backs, I didn't want to listen to any of their complaints and tantrums. I considered myself a patient person to some extent, but I absolutely refused to go through that hell.
I thought about maybe bringing Izzy or TK, but only Izzy could gauge the state of BlackGarurumon and I doubt Matt would let me go hunting Digimons with his younger brother.
Mimi and I looked into each other's eyes before shrugging.
""Sure.""
***
"Hey, Mimi."
"Hm?"
"I didn't ask before, but, how was your arrival here?" I asked with a thoughtful hum as I watched Palmon contrive to mount onto Herissmon's shoulders before giving up upon realizing the hedgehog was smaller than her. "I remember Izzy mentioning something about an island, but nothing else."
"It was a disaster. After the tsunami we appeared in some kind of jungle, not even ten minutes passed when we were attacked by a Kuwagamon-"
Mimi talked for a long while explaining her adventures on the so-called File Island, from her encounter with some strange phone booths in the middle of the beach, to her adventures through a temple in the middle of a jungle. While she was chattering, sometimes I interrupted her to ask her some questions, usually about the Digimons there, as well as their fauna and flora.
Unlike the Server Continent, where much of the terrain was endless desert with a few forests in the corners. File Island was an exotic, tropical, jungle-like place, big trees, exposed roots, rivers, streams and a huge amount of flowers, plants and generally colorful fauna; but not without the usual strangeness of the Digital World in it, destroyed light poles, traffic signs placed in random places, a huge power factory in the middle of a desert, and a mountain so big it bordered the clouds.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to seeing the island with my own eyes, having a huge desert gets tedious fast.
"-we were always being attacked by Devimon-controlled Digimons or the occasional wild Digimon. During the nights there were always at least two of us standing guard in case any attacks occurred, and yes, there was always at least one attack every two or three nights."
"Sleep is essential for skin and body care!" Mimi exclaimed with a pout. "I couldn't be a model if I'm a dwarf..."
"You've mentioned this Devimon several times already, who exactly is he?" I asked curiously as I watched the pair of Digimons play with each other. Apparently Palmon didn't want to let Herissmon off his shoulders. "Although from the name I can get an idea..."
"You have the right idea then! It was a demon-like Digimon... no wait, maybe more vampire-like" Mimi looked thoughtfully into the distance before shrugging her shoulders. "Anyway, the point is that he had created some sort of gears that could control the other Digimons if they were embedded in their bodies or something. I don't know exactly how, but he managed to control a large portion of the Digimons on the island!"
"When you say control...?"
"Sort of like a metal control I guess, I mean, he couldn't exactly control all of the Digimons' actions but he did make them more manipulable and aggressive to almost anything but himself. Like I said, first class idiot. Even Leomon was controlled by him!"
I didn't ask who this Leomon was, but he seemed to be important to Mimi by the way he said it. The way she described Devimon reminded me a bit of Ogremon, but the supposed demon Digimon seemed to be more... cautious with his actions, or at least smarter than the ogremon.
"But you beat him right?"
"Hehe! Nope! He beat the crap out of us despite all the planning Izzy did" Mimi grimaced as she let out a nervous laugh.
I paused for a moment before tilting my head with narrowed eyes. Perhaps seeing my clear confusion, Mimi quickly answered the unspoken question.
"We get help, duh" Mimi replied with an uncomfortable expression on her face. "Remember when I said we were sometimes attacked by Digimons controlled by the gears? Well, we never actually... killed them, we simply destroyed their gears freeing them from Devimon's control and in return, they promised to help us when needed. We simply accepted everyone's help at the same time and we all went to fight Devimon."
"So you went to face Devimon without absorbing any Dato at all?" I saw Mimi nod slowly at my question, several thoughts and questions ran through my head at that moment.
If this Devimon was as strong as Ogremon or Nanomon?
"That... that's crazy!" I exclaimed in disbelief, it was a miracle that everyone was safe and sound.
"I know! But... never mind" Mimi frowned tightly before shaking her head. "If it hadn't been for Andromon's help I think, no, I know we all would have died there..."
With those words we both fell into a tense silence. Mimi's words kept going round and round in my head, as well as that whole situation with Devimon. It was just crazy, maybe I'm assuming too much, but if this Devimon had similar strength to Ogremon's strength then it was basically a force to be reckoned with; I never forget the small detail that it was thanks to Filmon's Data Wipe that we were able to defeat the Ogre King so easily, and even that's relative.
"You know..."
Mimi's voice snapped me out of my daze.
"The first Digimon that I... that I killed was Cockatrimon during the assault on Etemon. None of us had actually killed any Digimon before we came to this Continent."
Mimi stopped her walk as she looked down at her own feet with awkward movements.
"At the time I didn't give any importance to the Data to get from Cockatrimon, I was focused on the plan and rescuing you, the adrenaline made me forget it easily, even more so with the stress and fear we all felt when facing Etemon..." Mimi shook her head before taking a shaky breath. "But now...I wonder if it was really necessary to do what I did..."
"Mimi-"
I tried to speak, but she interrupted me as she looked up and met my eyes hard, as if bracing herself for a hard blow.
"Tell me, Noah" Mimi's voice became so low it almost sounded like a whisper. "...I'm a killer?"
...
.
.
"I-" I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could say anything, a huge cloud of sand and dust erupted not far from us.
...
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