Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Digimon Tamers - Inner Demons ❯ Realization 001 - "Wild One" ( Chapter 1 )
A different world, with familiar faces.
Battle on the verge of life or death - this is the life of a Digimon Tamer.
Anime/Manga: Digimon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Drama / Angst | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 03.27.2011 | Updated On: 03.27.2011 | Pages: 2 | Words: 4.2K | Visits: 636 | Status: Completed
Warning: Inner Demons can, and will, contain varying levels of violence, foul language, suggestive dialogue, and sexual situations, any of which having the potential of being graphic. This story is intended for mature audiences. Discretion is advised.
Author's Note: Well, it certainly has been a long time, hasn't it? Welcome to the new iteration of my long standing Digimon Tamers AU series, Inner Demons. For those new to the program, ID takes the concept of being an alternate universe and runs with it - it is me taking all the pieces of the Digimon Tamers concept, shaking them up, and laying them out in a new, but hopefully familiar enough manner. Make no mistake that it also intended from the very top to be a bit dark; very few, if any, punches are likely to be pulled. (Except for where some sites content guidelines are concerned.)
Unfortunately, I realize I only posted my indication of ending the previous iteration and re-starting it from scratch elsewhere, and not on this site. Sorry for that, but this is the way its going now.
So without saying too much more at the top, away we go!
Inner Demons
Realization 001 - "Wild One"
By Infinity Blade
Shinjuku. It is but one section of the exceedingly massive metropolitan capital of Japan, Tokyo.
You could pass any number of thousands of people on its well traveled streets and sidewalks daily. Each one different. Each one unique. Each one with their own individual traits and skills, that makes them just as important a cog in the wheel of life, of the ebb and flow of the city as someone standing right next to them.
Many, though, do not realize that importance. Or their potential. Or even the influence any one simple action could take to affect the life of the total stranger they are standing next to.
As a crowded train comes to a stop, one man strong arms his way to the front of the gathering of people. Not considering others in the slightest, the commotion knocks a woman down as she, too, was attempting to leave off the subway.
The doors close, and by the time she has picked herself up, the train is again moving. Getting off on the next stop, mercifully still close to her eventual destination, she is nonetheless forced to make a detour. And on this detour, she encounters a rather unsavory pack of hoodlums.
By the next morning, this poor woman is little more than a statistic, a headline on the newspaper, and a chalk outline on the ground. As her family mourns, the salaryman, so eager to reach his all important business meeting, is blissfully unaware. He never WILL be aware, and will live a long, prosperous life, while that woman's family falls apart piece by piece from their despair.
Cause and effect.
One's seemingly meaningless actions can change the fates of other people's whole worlds.
Likewise, one simple change, a modification of what those would typically see as the perceived course of things... Something that was 'meant to be...'
That alone can change far more than just the fate of one person's life.
Night time in Shinjuku is lit by bright, shining signs, and the lights of skyscrapers radiating light down upon the streets below. That is, at least, if one is in the correct place...
An alleyway, shrouded in darkness. A group of four men, the lot of them criminals, stand conversing over their latest conquest. Nothing elaborate. A snatched purse, containing a small sum of cash and various credit cards. A small score, but such things add up over time.
Among them, the shortest of the men, lanky and pale, was sweating profusely. He had been standing there for the longest time, and had an expression on his face that would tell anyone he was altogether nervous.
"Yo, Saiki, you got a problem?" one of the older men inevitably asked, punching 'Saiki' in the shoulder.
The short man's eyes shifted around nervously, and he frowned. "Its just... hot around here, don't ya think? I mean, it's November..."
He pulled at the collar of his coat. "Shouldn't be this fuckin' hot..."
Another man, his face scarred across its left side, gave a snort. "Bullshit. You're still nervous 'bout that chick we iced the other night. I'm tellin' ya, cops ain't got nothin' they can pin on us. No witnesses. And we were nice 'n' clean about it. All she was carryin' was cash, anyway, so's not like they can even track, like, her credit card usage or anything..."
The scarred man guffawed, slapping Saiki on the back. "Y'gotta learn to loosen up if you're gonna be runnin' this gig, bro. I've been doin' this for years. Ain't never been caught. Trust me when I say, you picked the right crew to roll with."
The fourth man, slightly older than Saiki, did frown, despite the scarred man's assurances. "Yeah, s'all well 'n' good, boss... but damn, kid's gotta point. Shit's hot out here. Any reason we can't head in somewhere some goddamned AC?"
The scarred man gave a snort, but smirked all the same, crossing his arms. "Ah, ya buncha pussies. Fine, fine. We can head back to my joint and-"
What came next appeared in only an instant.
A patch patch of thick fog, which the eye could not penetrate for anything, erupted in the middle of the four men's gathering. It swelled out, and encompassed the entire alley. Within the patch of fog, the heat rose to tremendous, nearly unbearable levels, and the four men sprang back, each drawing guns. They looked around wildly, thinking for certain this was some kind of attack or trap.
It was, indeed, a kind of attack.
Within the next few instances, something... materialized out of thin air. A glowing form appeared before them, before it died down, forming into a hulking beast. A monster, even.
It was like... a massive lizard, standing upon its hind legs. As if this were not peculiar enough on its own, its body was lit ablaze, and the fires were practically black. Slitted eyes gazed upon them through a helmet that adorned its head, and the monster gave a snarl.
The men could only stare, their mouths agape, each one utterly horrified. The monster, to its credit, only stood, observing these small, fleshy creatures...
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!" the scarred man suddenly shouted, training his gun on the creature's head. "SHOOT THE GODDAMNED THING!"
Shoot, they did, echoes of their shots ringing out down the alley. The monster, however... did not move. Not even an inch. Bullets either bounced off its armored head, or were lost somewhere amidst the flames of its body.
It hissed, holding up a claw and flexing it. "Humans," the monster spoke, causing all four of the men to stop solid once again. "I see your perchance for barbaric violence is not lost, even in your own reality."
The human beings had no chance to react again. Suddenly, the massive lizard's claw lashed out. Those claws caught the fourth member of the gang... and that was all they needed to do. There was a brief, shrill cry, and a huge splash of blood accompanied by the man's dismembered arm before the lizard yanked his claws free of the human's abdomen and upper torso.
While their comrade collapsed dead on the floor of the alley, the monster turned his gaze on the scarred man. Fire, exploding with all the intensity of any gun, erupted from the creature's maw, engulfing the so-called leader of these hoodlums.
As horrified cries were sent into the night's sky, the oldest of the men began to make a run for it. The giant lizard jumped after him, easily clearing the distance... and landing right upon the human's back. The monster's weight alone immediately snapped and shattered the man's spine. As the monster's massive weight settled upon him, further bones were crushed, and vital organs ruptured. And even further STILL, contact with the creature's burning body set the already-dead man's body ablaze.
Saiki was huddled against a wall, body shaking violently with nothing short of abject fear. The monster hissed once again, turning his slitted eyes to peer down at his last victim. He chuckled, and began to approach him.
"How does it feel, human?" asked the monster. Were he not already wetting his pants, in a more peaceful state of mind, Saiki might ask himself how this other worldly being knew how to speak perfect Japanese. "To watch friends die, one by one, to feel nothing except the cold, unrelenting fear of your inevitable fate?"
Saiki could only whimper submissively, unable to form coherent words, and soon sobbing uncontrollably.
"I asked a question, HUMAN!" the monster barked, now looming directly above the young man. "How does it FEEL?!"
Saiki would never have the opportunity to answer.
There was a sudden flash, a yellow blur, slamming into the mask of the dark lizard monster. The beast gave a howl of pain, stumbling back into the sweltering, hot alley. Saiki, having no idea what was happening, only watched.
The monster snarled wildly, and caught himself on the alley's wall. Claws digging into the brick of the building, he looked up, eyes burning with anger.
"TAMER!"
"Ta... Tamer...?" Saiki finally uttered, his first cohesive word in the past two minutes.
"You would do well to leave," said a voice from behind him. It was a girl's voice.
He looked up, and indeed, saw a girl. A teenager, in fact. Beautiful, with long, red hair tied behind her neck in a ponytail. She wore a long coat, and her eyes were obstructed by a pair of blue tinted sunglasses.
"Leave," she said, simply, firmly, with more authority than someone her age could normally be expected to command. "Go and never tell anyone about this. No one will believe you, anyway. And if you do, we will know. We know everything there is to know about you."
She tipped her sunglasses down, violet eyes appraising him with what could be described as nothing but absolute disgust.
"Even what you did last night, Saiki Shizuma."
Saiki needed no more convincing. He scrambled to his feet, and he ran. He didn't look back, even as he heard shouts and cries of pain from behind him.
He ran for what felt like hours.
He ran until he reached a police station.
Whereupon he confessed to his crimes, and the murder of a woman.
All while begging for the authorities to lock him in a cell and throw away the key.
"DarkLizamon. Adult-Level Digimon."
Makino Ruki pushed her sunglasses back up on her nose, staring with little emotion or concern upon the creature standing before her. This was in contrast to the 'DarkLizamon' himself, who was a (literal) burning tower of pure, unrestrained rage.
The bodies, torn asunder, broken, and charred, the blood around her... it did nothing to faze the girl's expression.
"Tamer..." DarkLizamon hissed, repeating himself and beginning to stomp towards the teenage girl. "Which one, I wonder? I thought you all long dead, or succumbed to the influence of that horrendous beast which your kind helped to devour our world..."
He gave a dark, bitter chuckle.
"Or is this world merely producing more of you, hm? Building up, and biding your time, awaiting the day when you will come and finish what you started...?"
Ruki's brow furrowed, and she regarded DarkLizamon with disdain. "You talk too much. Renamon."
There was a flash beside Ruki, and a humanoid, fox monster appeared. She, like Ruki, was taking in the situation with an unspeakable level of calmness.
"A Child?!" DarkLizamon roared. "You think you will combat me with a mere Child-Level?!"
Both Tamer and her Digimon ignored him. "This wouldn't normally take long," the girl murmured. "But Yamaki wants this one alive."
Renamon quirked an eyebrow. "Whatever for?"
"Haven't the foggiest," Ruki said, holding out a hand. There was a swirling of light between her two outstretched fingers, before an object made of pure energy, shaped like a card, formed. "I'll grill him on it later. But... this shouldn't take too much longer."
"Wretches," DarkLizamon growled."You are ignoring me...!"
He gave a wild howl, and dashed straight at them, arms outstretched.
Ruki just gave a snort. "Amateur," she spat, and a low glow started to appear in a circle around her. "Draw Field."
That glow became an explosion of light, which became a bubble of energy surrounding Ruki and Renamon. DarkLizamon's claws came down onto it, and there was another small explosion upon impact. The shock wave fired outwards from the bubble at DarkLizamon, and the burning reptile found himself flung back, smoke rising from his claws.
He didn't appear HURT... but this 'Draw Field' was something that he could not penetrate.
"If you don't understand what you're facing when you fight a Tamer," Ruki said, "you may as well roll over and die."
Renamon stepped forward. And while the Draw Field deflected their enemy, the fox was able to step straight through it without any harm or pause.
DarkLizamon growled, scraping the claws of his feet against the ground. "You are vile infidels, defiling our kind...! MANIPULATING US!"
Renamon flexed her claws, dropping into a fighting stance. "Hardly," said the smaller Digimon back to he would-be opponent.
"Enough," Ruki said, bringing the glowing card up that she had summoned moments ago. From her pocket, she produced something else; a small, silver device with blue trim. "Psi Card Slash."
She brought the card down the side of the device, sliding it through a slot. There was a flash of blue power, and Ruki cried out, "ICE FUSION, LEVEL ONE!"
There was a cool, sweeping breeze around Renamon's body. Thrusting out one paw, it became a blue glow... and she motioned silently for DarkLizamon to move. Roaring, he threw his face forward, a torrent of unnaturally dark flames spreading out towards her...
Renamon didn't try to dodge. She merely pushed herself forward, INTO the path of the attack, and threw out a punch. The blue glow became like a burst of winter wind as her fist connected with the blast, stopping it as if she had erected a wall.
DarkLizamon didn't quit. He kept firing the blast of fire, obviously unwilling to relent or admit any kind of defeat. That was fine, Ruki knew... because neither would her partner.
Renamon continued to throw a series of icy-charged punches into wave of fire, until finally... she punched straight through it, and into DarkLizamon's mask.
There was an audible crack from the impact of Renamon's fist, and her enemy stumbled back. He huffed, reaching towards his face...
Until Renamon flipped backwards, her feet flashing blue, connecting with his jaw. There was another explosion of cold wind upon impact, so intense that DarkLizamon was blown back from both it and the physical connection. His flames were fanned back, and before he could recover, Renamon was back on her feet and dashing up underneath him.
The smaller Digimon threw another round of punches, each one still backed by her boosted elemental powers. She attacked with such speed and blinding fury that counting the NUMBER of punches thrown would have been next to impossible for most. Each hit erupted with a force of sub-zero temperatures, overcoming his burning body and leaving Renamon with not a singe on her fur.
And then, she stopped, jumping back. DarkLizamon's body was doubled over, clutching his chest. His flames flickered wildly, almost as if he were struggling to maintain them. He was actually SHIVERING from the cold. Then he looked up, squinting...
Just as Renamon came flying at him, a sharp kick nailing him between the eyes. The much larger monster was lifted off his feet, soaring back, flipping over... until he slammed head first into a wall. Stone shattered from his weight, and he fell, huddled into a ball.
Renamon landed, standing defensively for several moments as both she and Ruki watched their opponent. As his breathing became shallow, Ruki nodded and stepped forward, her Draw Field flashing and vanishing. The fog around them began to lift, and the heat started to drift away.
The young woman scoffed, reaching in her jeans pocket for a cell phone. "Too easy," she murmured, flipping out the phone and hitting a number. "Hardly worth the trouble of saving..."
Waiting just a moment, someone on the other end picked up.
"Yamaki. This is Makino. Target down," she said, not even waiting for a response on the other end.
She stared out at the alleyway. The dead bodies should have affected her more than they did. Whether criminals and thugs or not, they were human beings, and their lives had been snuffed out without a thought. Brutally, at that.
Yet... she couldn't bring herself to feel much. They were causalities of war, and this war was far from over... They were hardly the first to die from this.
They wouldn't be the last.
"Three causalities. Since I trust you've had local authorities rope off the area, we're gonna need a clean up crew to bag this thing."
Then, not even waiting for a RESPONSE, either, she closed off the phone. Glancing at Renamon, she just turned around to walk off. She was done here.
Not her problem anymore.
"Ruki..." began the fox, walking after her.
"Home," Ruki said, simply. "This night's over."
Closing her eyes, Renamon nodded and vanished from sight in the blink of an eye.
Besides the aspect of CAPTURING one of these 'Wild Ones' as opposed to outright obliterating it on sight, this was hardly a strange night for Makino Ruki. If anything, it was a slow one.
All she had to do, all she could do, was keep fighting. As she left the alley, leaving the unconscious monster and dead bodies behind, she knew she'd lose no sleep over it.
The beast's eyes snapped open.
He thrashed, but it was to no avail.
He was suspended in ... some sort of liquid, cables attached and boring into his body. They restrained him and, he knew, analyzing his data. The liquid was strange, though...
Strange in that it did not extinguish his flames.
DarkLizamon continued to thrash for a moment, the fact he had been out for several hours slowly sinking in. He tried to free himself for some time, until at last, lights flickered on. He realized he was in a clear tube, and on the other side of it, in a monitoring chamber, there was a human. Blond hair, in a suit, sunglasses adorning his face.
"HUMAN!" DarkLizamon roared, thrashing again, reaching his claws out. He wished desperately he could smash through that glass, and tear this ... THING watching him in half.
It took the Digimon a moment to realize that, somehow, his voice also carried through this strange liquid he was submerged in. No, it was more that data being leeched from him was, in fact, in some manner being read as sound which reached this human. The surprise of that, if nothing else, calmed his struggle for a moment.
"My name," the man said, his voice also carrying through to the Digimon, "is unimportant. You are a DarkLizamon, am I correct?"
The reptile growled, pointing one claw out for the man. "How DARE you imprison me like this?! If you must mock my weakness, just kill me and be done with it!"
This person showed no physical reaction. "That's not going to be happening. We need you alive."
He paused.
"For the moment."
"YOU SICK BACK OF FLESH!" DarkLizamon hissed. "Do you delight in stringing me up like this?!"
The man didn't answer the question. "Why did you come here?"
A rumbling growl came up out of the Digimon's throat, but he replied, "Do you think I would CHOOSE to come to this wretched plane of existence?"
"Were you SENT here?"
DarkLizamon waved his claw. "Hn! In a sense, I guess you could say that... if you consider the Digital World basically forcing me out as it 'sending' me... I'm nothing more than that world's excess trash. Hardly even worthwhile for my own world to sustain... Ever since YOUR kind. Ever since the Destroyer..."
The burning reptile tapped his claws together, however, closing his eyes.
"But that's all I have to say, human."
"Really, now. You may not be good for very much if you plan on giving me the silent treatment."
DarkLizamon opened his eyes back up. "That's all I have to say for TODAY. After your slaver and her traitor gave me the thrashing they did, I think ... I need rest."
This man would not kill him.
Not yet.
DarkLizamon knew that much, and that gave him the leverage he needed.
For now.
He etched this man's face into his memory. The Digimon didn't know what he wanted, but he would find out... and he would make sure this human suffered the utmost of humiliation for doing THIS to him.
"Hm. Fine, then," the man said, heading for the door of the observation room. "Have it your way."
As the man left, the entire chamber was again plunged into absolute darkness.
DarkLizamon simply hung there. If nothing else, this experience would be illuminating.
He would make sure it was as such for the BOTH of them...
-TO BE CONTINUED
Author's Notes: And thus we're off and running.
Yeah, again. It's been a long time. Real life, work, and all sorts of other responsibilites have kept me from this and writing longform in GENERAL for a long time. ID, however, has always been something that's stuck in my brain, and hasn't let go.
Ten years ago this week, Digimon Tamers started in Japan. I guess you could say releasing this now is almost my tribute to the series. I love Tamers. For all its good points, for any of its faults, Tamers will always remain one of my favorite shows ever.
A long time ago, the inception of this particular story was brought up by one Chiaki J. Konaka, head writer for Tamers in Japan, and his web site. In what was a real boon for Tamers fans, he had almost his entire Tamers site translated (roughly) into English. In that, some rough, early story concepts were mentioned that really got my wheels spinning...
Then I realized I could do so much more than just THAT.
Very few shows, or ANY sort of media, have inspired me to writing as much as Digimon Tamers. The concept of creating my own world using every piece of Tamers I could dig up and rearranging them was far too tempting to NOT go through with.
Unfortunately, with the first version of Inner Demons... I got ahead of myself. I was young and impatient, wanting to cram too many elements in at the same time, while letting other important elements fall a bit too the side.
But I'm older now, more experienced at both life and writing. I hope to do better this time.
Do not come in here expecting everything to play out exactly as it did in the original version; as you'll see from this chapter alone, several things play out VERY differently here from the original. Hopefully, this method will work.
As it is, I have several chapters written out ahead. I will be releasing them over the course of several weeks, while working on writing more at the same time.
For now, I hope you enjoy it.
NEXT: Realization 002 - "Matsuda Takato"