Pipermon squinted her eyes against the wind. She looked up at the sky and her chest tightened.
"Fabulous," she muttered, and brushed her hair out of her face.
Tai wrapped his arms around his body, startled by the sudden gusts of cold wind. He shivered, then glanced up in Pipermon's direction.
"What's going on?" he asked, shouting over the wind. "Pipermon?"
She stood up.
"The Arashii..." she said, grabbing her hair in her hands to keep in from blowing in her face. "I forgot...I forgot about the Arashii..."
Tai blinked.
"The Ara-huh?" he asked.
"The Arashii," she called, yelling to be heard over the howling winds, "horrendous storms that blow through these woods at night."
"Storms?" he echoed. "Oh, that's just perfect...and me without my umbrella..."
Pipermon grabbed Tai by the wrist and quickly pulled him to his feet.
"Come on," she yelled, dragging him after her, "we have to find shelter somewhere. There's a big tree over there that we can--"
"A TREE??" he cried, yanking free of her grip. "Pipermon, are you NUTS? A tree is the WORST place you can go during a storm! That's just ASKING to get struck by lightning!"
Pipermon growled in frustration.
"The Arashii are not your typical storms, Kamiya-san," she snapped, "there IS no lightning. It's all a lot of wind and thunder and hellacious rain!"
"How can that be?" Tai asked, genuinely curious. "I thought the lightning was what CAUSED the thunder..."
"Quit being difficult, Mophead--"
"MOPHEAD??"
"Look, we've got to find someplace sheltered before--" Pipermon stopped in mid-sentence as a hissing sound filled her ears. "Too late..." she muttered, and grabbed Tai by the arm again. "Come on!"
And they started to run.
The hissing sound grew louder.
Dammit, Pipermon thought, we won't make it in time! She thought quickly.
With a short cry, she swung her arm forward, flinging Tai out in front of her. She wrapped her arms around him, like she were giving him a bear hug, and dropped to her knees. It all happened so quickly that Tai didn't even have a second to wonder what was going on. He started to protest, but she put her hand on his head and tilted it down so his chin was against his breastbone. He was about to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing when the hissing sound became almost deafening. He suddenly realized what it was when he felt what must have been buckets of rain pour down from the sky. The cold rain fell over them for about six seconds, then stopped, almost completely, abating to a misty drizzle.
Tai suddenly realized that Pipermon's tackle had been to protect him from the downpour, and immediately felt bad for having yelled at her previously. It had worked, he was still almost completely dry. He felt a sudden pang of guilt when he realized that she must have gotten drenched in her efforts to shield him. Frowning, he made a mental note to apologize later as he felt her arms loosen from around his torso.
"Are you okay?" she asked him. "I hope I didn't smoosh you."
He grinned.
"No," he said, "I'm okay." He was about to thank her when she took his arm again.
"C'mon, Mophead," she said, pulling him to his feet, "it's not over yet."
They hurried forward again, running for the large tree that stood off to the right side of the path.
"Yai!"
Pipermon whirled as Taichi's wrist was ripped from her grasp and he let out a shrill yelp, like a cat whose tail had gotten stepped on.
"Mophead, what are you doing?"
"Composing a symphony," he muttered wryly, "what does it LOOK like I'm doing?" He picked himself up from the wet ground and rubbed the bruise that was now forming on his left shin. "Duh, I tripped over something," he went on, scowling. "What the hell WAS that?"
Pipermon looked perplexed.
"You don't have tree stumps where you come from?" she asked.
Tai flattened his eyes.
"Not usually right in the middle of the PATH!" he remarked sourly, wincing at the pain in his left leg.
"No time to play around, Mophead," Pipermon said, helping him to his feet. "We've gotta get out of the open before the next bout of rain."
They sprinted over to the tree, and dove beneath its sheltering branches just as the next line of rain doused down from the heavens. Pipermon slumped back against the tree.
"Whew," she sighed, "that's about all the excitement I can stand for one night, how about you?"
Tai plopped down on the ground and settled himself between two of the large roots that protruded from the ground.
"What a bizarre storm," he said softly, wriggling to get comfortable against the tree's hard, scratchy bark. "Is it like this every night?"
"Every single night," she replied. "That's the nature of these storms. They're actually dozens of individual storms, all right in a line, that's why the rain falls as it does. They come in a line, so the rain falls in sheets for all of about six or eight seconds, then there's nothing till the next storm passes over you. It all goes on for about three hours...sometimes four."
"So long?" Tai asked. "How weird."
Then something occurred to him. Years ago, when the children first came to the digital world, they discovered that whatever happened there directly affected what happened in the real world. If a new enemy was causing these unusually strong and lengthy storms, and could create contortions in time and space to create vortexes, could they not also have created a time distortion between this world and the real world? Could the storm that he and his friends had witnessed back home have been caused by this same storm now? He wasn't sure, but was suddenly too tired to really worry about it. He would bring the point up to Izzy tomorrow. Tai shuddered as he felt the wind rush past the thick old tree, blowing on either side of him. He pressed his back up against the bark and pulled his knees up to his chest. He was out of the wind, but it howled past him on all either side. Pipermon had pushed him to the lee side of the tree.
But, that meant--
"Pipermon," he said, "you're right in the wind and rain."
She smiled.
"I'm fine," she insisted, "I'm used to it. I live in this forest, you forget."
Tai felt bad...but at the same time he was almost a little skeptical. It near about seemed that Pipermon was trying a little TOO hard to earn his trust. He folded his arms over his knees and rested his chin on his forearms. He sighed. It was going to be a long night.
A few minutes of silence went past, the wind and rain never letting up. Tai glared angrily as rain dripped from the tree branches down onto his back, and he squirmed, trying to get out of the chilly rain. Pipermon encircled her knees with her arms and set her chin on one elbow. She glanced at Tai out of the corner of one eye and lifted her head. She frowned when she saw him shiver in the wind. She quickly turned her head back forward, her face stern.
What IS this? she asked herself angrily. Why is it that I should question my loyalty to Kurarimon over the fate of a bunch of kids I've sworn to destroy anyway? She grit her teeth and glanced over her shoulder again.
"Kamiya-san?" she asked softly. He made a wordless sound of acknowledgment. "Are you okay?" she queried.
He made a scoffing noise.
"Oh, sure," he replied snidely. "I'm hungry, I'm wet, we're lost, it's cold, and I can't see anything. I'm just peachy keen, how about you?"
Pipermon frowned. Then she thought of something. Making a series of slow deliberate motions with her hands, similar to those one would make when creating shadow figures on the wall, she closed her eyes and whispered something Tai couldn't quite hear. Then she turned one palm up toward the sky and blew on it, and a tennis ball sized object appeared. It was the color of a golden sunrise, and Pipermon beamed, pleased that she had remembered how make it.
"Here," she said to Tai, extending the hand that held the small golden object. He blinked, and held his hand out. She dropped the object into his palm and returned to her seat around the other side of the tree.
Taichi hesitated.
"What...what is it?" he asked suspiciously.
Pipermon turned back over her shoulder.
"Don't tell me you've never eaten an apple before..." she said.
"Well, never a digital one..." he murmured under his breath. Pipermon grinned. "Where did it come from?" he prodded, still wary.
Pipermon made a face.
"Well, most apples come from trees," she said.
Tai narrowed one eye.
"You didn't get it from a tree," he said, "you didn't even move."
She pressed her knuckles into her chin.
"I created it," she said.
Tai jumped.
"You WHAT?" he cried, not sure he heard her right.
She looked at him.
"I know a spell to create apples," she told him, feeling kind of silly. "I hardly ever use it...someone taught it to me a long time ago...I thought it was a rather pointless spell at the time, but sometimes it seems to come in awful handy."
"You...you MADE it?" he asked...still holding it in his palm. He plucked it from his palm by the stalk and held it out away from his face like it would bite him. His eyes narrowed. "How do I know it's safe to eat?"
Pipermon rolled her large blue eyes.
"Oh, please, give me a LITTLE credit, won't you?" she said. "If I were really trying to hurt you, I'd do it with something a little more original than a poisoned apple..." She shifted her weight. "But I guess, ultimately, it's up to you, Mophead," she went on. "The choice is yours. You can either trust me, eat it, and be tided over till morning...or you can NOT trust me, and be hungry until your friends happen upon our location." She paused. "But if you don't trust me, I dunno who you're GOING to trust. If you could look around you, you'd see you really don't have a big selection to choose from. It's me, or it's nobody, Kamiya-san. If you really feel I'm such the villainess," she went on, folding her arms over her chest, "and you'd rather continue this little detour on your own, I won't stop you."
He didn't reply.
Pipermon rested her chin on her elbows again.
Tai rolled the apple from one hand to the other, back and forth. Then he sighed...and took a bite. He chewed it for a moment, then a smile slid across his face.
"You make a pretty good apple, Pipermon," he said quietly.
She blinked, startled, then turned to look at him. He took another bite, then set the apple down beside him. He folded his arms across his knees, and rested his forehead on his arm. Pipermon shuddered in the wind. Not from cold, not really, she was used to the chill in these woods by now. There was something else, something she couldn't quite put her finger on, and whether it was the children themselves that made her nervous, or her own feelings toward them, she just wasn't sure. She sighed and held up her right hand. He flute shimmered into existence, and she brought it up to her mouth. She always played her flute when something was troubling her, it helped clear her head. Blowing gently into the instrument, she piped out a soft, sad, haunting melody, one she had played a hundred times before.
But somehow it seemed sadder tonight.
Tai perked up at the sound of the music. He listened to the sweet melody, then smiled when her song was done.
"That's a pretty song," he said, "did you make it up yourself?"
She hesitated, frowned, then pressed the flute between her hands until it disappeared.
"Yes," she said quietly, her voice barely audible over the moan of the wind and the hiss of the rain, "yes, I did."
Tai rested his chin on his arms again.
"But such a sad melody," he went on quietly, then he shuddered and brought his knees up closer to his chest.
Pipermon frowned as she watched him wrap his arms around himself again in an effort to keep warm. Humans were not so easily adaptable to temperature, she knew. She, as a unique rare type of digimon, could easily lower her internal temperature to compensate for the chill outside.
Tai, however, could not.
She looked away, grimacing.
Why?? she demanded silently of herself. Why do I find myself so attached to these children?? I shouldn't even CARE what happens to them! She looked at him again, scowling at the fact that he wore only shorts, and a long sleeved shirt under a tee shirt. Definitely not sufficient clothing for the weather outside. Jyou-san probably brought blankets for all of them... she thought, suddenly wishing nothing more than to be able to fly both she and Tai back to the lake. STOP! she checked herself, placing her hands over her ears as though she could block the sound of her own thoughts. Jeez, what am I thinking? Why am I so torn by this? Half of me wants, more than anything, to follow Kurarimon's orders and bring these children to her! To destroy them and be done with it!
But what about the other half?
She squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth, then she looked at Tai again. He shivered in the wind, and she felt her chest tighten.
Why? Why does part of me desire to destroy him...and the other part...to protect him?
She looked at the ground, then clenched her hands. She looked back over her shoulder at the human boy she suddenly felt such attachment to.
He's all wet, she thought with a frown, and it's so cold here. He's liable to get sick in this weather... She paused. I don't think Kurarimon would be very appreciative if I let her prime target fall ill. Nobody wants to destroy a sick kid, where's the fun in that? You just can't do it, you feel too sorry for them...
She took a deep breath, and slowly shifted from a sitting position to a kneeling one. She crawled slowly to where Tai was still sitting with his head on his arm. She gnawed her lower lip.
"Mophead?" she whispered. "Mophead are you asleep?"
He didn't reply.
"Kamiya-san?"
No response.
Good, she thought to herself.
She threaded her arms under his and carefully lifted him up. Then she slid in to sit beside him, placing him softly back down on the ground, positioning his back against her side. She froze when she felt him shift, but he didn't wake. He shuddered once, then was still. She slowly drew her knees up, then placed one hand around her shin, and the other on his shoulder, feeling rather awkward, but strangely protective at the same time. She pressed her back up against the tree and closed her eyes, contented now that he would be warm enough.
"Pipermon?" she heard him whisper.
She balked, and felt her face turn crimson. Eyes bugging out, she stared straight ahead at the tree across the way from theirs.
"Mm?" she squeaked, embarrassed that he had caught her. He shifted his weight, and settled up against her, draping his right arm over his abdomen. She suddenly noticed he wasn't shivering anymore.
"Thanks, Pipermon," he said softly, then fell silently into a light sleep.
Something caught Pipermon's eye in the darkness. His digivice...it had fallen out of his pocket when he had moved. She slowly, carefully, leaned forward and picked it up, holding the small mechanism in her palm. She frowned as she saw the light it emanated flicker and flash, like an old flourescent bulb. She closed her fingers around it, then placed it in Tai's open palm.
A little unsure of what to think, Pipermon lay one arm over his shoulder and placed her other hand atop his moppish hair. She sighed and leaned her head back against the sturdy old tree, listening to the rain as it slapped against the earth.
Why? she thought. Kurarimon...why?
She looked down at the sleeping Taichi. He looked so little and helpless when he was asleep...not at all like the fiercely protective leader of the digidestined. He looked almost...angelic. She wondered if all children looked like that when they slept. She furrowed her brow.
Oh, Kurarimon...why must you hate them so?
So whaddya think of Pipermon, ne? Lemme know! ::rubs hands together:: I am feeling the need to do another picture of
her, I haven't used my colored pencils in a while, and I wouldn't want them to feel neglected... ^_^ Okay, little note:
"Arashii" actually means "storm" in Japanese, so I figured that was a good name for "the storm". Waiii, aware na
Taichi...poor Tai... ::pout:: I almost feel bad for doing all this to him...nyah, he'll forgive me, cuz he already knows how it
ends. ~_^ Heh heh, so what does everyone think? Is Pipermon a good digimon or a bad digimon? "Oh, I'm not a witch
at all, I'm Pipermon, from--" er...wait...wrong movie. ::sweatdrop:: Anyway, please review! It only takes a second, and it
like, totally makes my day, so be a good samaritan and do it!! ^_^ Luv n smooches,
~~hikari
Back to the First Part of Chapter 6
