"Come on, guys," Tai said, getting to his feet. Kari took his wrist. "Storms are coming," he went on, "let's get to shelter before we all get drenched."
As they hurried toward their tents, Jyou turned back over his shoulder.
"Coming, Pipermon?" he asked as she headed toward the tree. She paused and looked at him.
"No, thanks," she said with a small sigh. "Now that all your digimon are here, the tents will be pretty crowded." She closed her eyes and smiled sweetly. "Besides," she added, "someone needs to keep watch."
Koushiro paused by his tent.
"If you need someone to relieve you, Pipermon," he said, "just come and wake one of us, okay?"
Pipermon winked at him and held up her fingers in a V.
"You got it, Izumi-san," she said, and watched the children retreat to their tents. Then she launched herself into the air and daintily sat down in the tree again. As the wind blew through her long hair, she watched the clouds slink past the moon, signaling the impending storms. She sighed and leaned back in the tree. It was strange...she suddenly found herself so drawn to these children...these children she was supposed to hate. She laughed softly to herself, shaking her head.
What's wrong with me? she wondered, resting her chin in her hands. I'm giving evil digimon a bad name... She chuckled again.
Then she perked up her ears. She had heard something...a giggle? A whisper? A voice, in the wind. Pipermon narrowed her blue eyes and tensed in the tree. Someone was nearby. She jumped softly down from her perch, dropping to the ground.
"Who's there?" she demanded, the wind whipping through her hair. "Show yourself!"
Another soft, high-pitched giggle rushed past her on the night wind, and she scowled. She knew that laugh. Her mouth twisted up in a sneer as Hollymon and Ivymon appeared in the shadows, their long tails twitching by their ankles.
"What do you two fools want?" she hissed.
Hollymon's red eyes narrowed to angry slits.
"Now is that any way to talk to your co-conspirators?" she asked unctuously.
Pipermon loured.
"Conniving, untrustworthy little weasels is all I would call YOU two..." she growled in response. "What do you want?"
"It's not what WE want, Piper," Ivymon said, and grinned when Pipermon winced. He knew she hated it when he called her that. "We're here on orders." He paused pointedly. "Orders from Kurarimon," he went on after a brief silence, "or had you forgotten about her?"
Pipermon's breath caught in her throat.
"What...what orders might those be?" she asked, trying not to sound nervous. It wasn't working.
"To find out what the hell you think you're doing," Ivymon said.
Pipermon tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
"Come again?" she asked neutrally, and Hollymon rolled her eyes.
"Come off it, Pipermon," the smaller digimon said, "don't play dumb. What's going on with you? Befriending these sniveling, incompetent little digidestined brats...you've gone soft on us!"
"Shut up," Pipermon growled in an admonishing tone.
"Is it true, then?" Ivymon prodded. "Have you betrayed Kurarimon?"
"Whose side are you really on, Pipermon?" Hollymon added.
"I don't have to tell you half-witted half-pints ANYTHING!" Pipermon shouted, slicing her hand through the air. "You two are MY subordinates, and don't you forget it! Know your place!"
"We KNOW our place, Piper..." Ivymon said slowly.
"But do you know yours?" Hollymon concluded.
Pipermon covered her ears with her hands like a child trying to ignore insults from the play yard bully.
"Shut up, BOTH of you!" she cried. "I don't have to take this crap from you!"
"Is it crap, Pipermon," Ivymon seethed, "or is it the TRUTH?"
"It's true, we've seen that it is," Hollymon sneered, "you've RESCUED them, for crying out loud. Why didn't you just let that boy fall into the vortex? It would have made things easier!"
Pipermon glared daggers at them.
"Weren't you dimwitted dolts listening?" she fumed. "Kurarimon wants the children brought to her...ALIVE. She wants to destroy them with her own hands, she doesn't want them damaged by chance or happenstance. She doesn't want their demise to be by accident, she would much rather defeat them in person."
"So why did you heal the child's headache?" Hollymon asked. "Kurarimon was rather having a lot of fun with that one."
Pipermon scowled.
"What's the point of torturing them now?" she shot back. "We're still more than a day's walk from Kuroniji, why weaken them so early?" She paused. "Besides," she added, folding her arms over her chest and turning her back on the twins, "the more I do for them the more willing they will be to trust me."
Ivymon threw his hands in the air.
"They ALREADY trust you!" he cried, and Pipermon whirled to face him, jabbing one finger at him.
"But their digimon DON'T!" she snapped, curling up her lip in a snarl. "And the more I do to convince them I'm their ally, the more likely they will be to follow me up the mountain to Kurarimon's castle!"
Hollymon scoffed laughingly.
"Liar," she hissed. "My god, you're such a lousy liar, Pipermon, you always WERE...how you convinced those kids of anything is totally beyond my comprehension."
"But now," Ivymon added quickly, "you don't even WANT to hurt them anymore...do you, Piper?"
"Shut up!" she shouted.
"DO YOU??" Hollymon yelled.
Pipermon whipped out her flute in a sparkling cloud of dust, then spun it like a staff.
"I'll rip out your forked little tongues!" she roared in fury.
Ivymon lifted one thin green eyebrow.
"Is that a challenge, Piper?" he asked smoothly.
She gripped the flute between her thin fingers, her knuckles whitening.
"If that's what you lowlife cretins want..."
The two smaller digimon grinned at one another, then nodded in tandem and sprang into action.
"Binding Tendrils!" Ivymon shouted.
"Prickly Heat!" Hollymon echoed.
Pipermon laughed off their attacks as though they had been nothing, spinning the ammunition away with a flick of her flute.
"You'll have to do better than that," she taunted, and raised the instrument to her lips. "Midnight Lightning!"
The purple bands of glowing lightning shot from the flute toward Hollymon and Ivymon, but the twins weren't going to fall for that again. They dodged the attack, then Ivymon darted into the shadows of the darkened trees, disappearing from sight. Pipermon spun, her sharp eyes scanning the trees for her invisible menace.
"Binding Tendrils!"
She let out a yelp when vines wrapped themselves tightly around her upper torso, binding her arms to her sides, and then slithered around her neck, daring to cut off her air. Ivymon chuckled and stepped back into the light.
"Not so tough when we're not protecting our precious digidestined, now are we, Piper?" he taunted in a syrupy voice.
"Oh, go find some mistletoe and kiss my--"
"Ah, ah, ah, Pipermon," Hollymon chided, waving one finger in the air, "there's no need for vulgar language." She grinned at her brother as he approached her slowly, cracking his knuckles.
"I suppose it's like they always say," Ivymon oozed, "two heads really ARE better than one, ne?"
"Not when they only have half a brain between the two of them!" Pipermon spat, and felt the vines tighten around her neck. She gasped, then coughed, and struggled against Ivymon's viselike grip.
"You're trying my patience, Piper," he warned. She ignored him.
Hollymon grinned like a hyena.
"So easy..." she said softly, cracking her own knuckles in a maliciously contemptuous manner. "Like taking candy from a baby." She splayed her fingers, then grinned at Pipermon, a wild look in her red eyes. "Prickly Heat!"
"Lightning Paw!"
Pipermon let out a squeak of surprise when a flash of white tore through the vines constraining her. She tumbled backward, landing hard on the forest floor, and then looked up, her jaw dropping in shock at the sight of her rescuer.
"Two against one isn't fair," Gatomon growled, flattening her large ears against her head and narrowing her blue eyes. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that?"
Hollymon leapt backward into the air, and looked at her brother.
"Time to go," she whispered, and he nodded.
"Until we meet again, Little Piper!" Ivymon called, and the two impish digimon vanished into the wind in a puff of smoke. Gatomon flexed her claws, then glanced back over her shoulder at Pipermon as the fallen digimon got to her feet.
"Gatomon?" Pipermon gasped in surprise. She couldn’t believe her eyes.
The catlike digimon turned primly on her heels and headed back toward camp. Impulsively, Pipermon reached out and grabbed the end of Gatomon's long striped tail. The feline spun back and glared.
"Gatomon...why?" Pipermon asked, genuinely curious. "Why...why did you save me?"
Gatomon frowned.
"I heard a noise," she said softly, "so I peeked out of my tent to see what was going on. When I saw that you weren't in your tree, I figured I had better come and see what was going on." Her blue eyes flashed. "You were protecting them, the children," she went on, her words slow and articulate, "I wanted to make sure nothing prevented you from doing that." She turned again, and started to walk away, pausing only long enough to add, "Please let go of my tail."
Pipermon did so, then extended one arm, in a beckoning manner.
"Gatomon!" she called, and Gatomon paused again, but didn’t look back this time. Pipermon hesitated. "Thank you, Gatomon."
"Don't mention it," Gatomon replied. She looked pointedly over her shoulder. "Ever," she added icily, and headed back to Kari's tent. Pipermon watched her go, and a frown slid over her features.
Damn you, Kurarimon, she though bitterly. But she should have seen this coming. Kurarimon was too smart, she'd seen right through Pipermon like a sheet of glass. She knew now, if she hadn't figured it out already, that Pipermon no longer had any desire to harm the digidestined. But why? she demanded of herself. WHY don't I desire to destroy them anymore? The digidestined destroyed Piedmon...my master...my creator...I should HATE them for that...but I...I just can't! I should want nothing more than to destroy them to exact revenge for Piedmon's defeat...that was why I agreed to join Kurarimon's fight against them in the first place...so why am I having second thoughts now?
She shook her head to clear it, and returned to her perch in the tree, torn between her head and her heart. One told her to destroy the children...and the other told her to protect them. She didn't know which one to listen to anymore...she just didn't know. Sitting in the tree, Pipermon watched the first downpours of the Arashii fall upon the digital earth until she was sure it could have been wrung like a wet rag. She let her head fall back against the sturdy timber of the old tree and listened to the rain.
What's wrong with me? she asked herself again. Only she wasn’t laughing this time. What am I doing...?
O_o Okay, I think it's time for bed... ::points at self:: Okay, hikari, no more posting fics at 2am, especially not when you have to work in the morning. ::sigh:: But, alas, my public awaits! Well, okay, but that's the last one I'm posting tonight....but more will come soon, yakusoku shimasen. Aww...poor Pipermon...she's so torn... ::bounce:: It makes my fingers all tingly when I type it, it's so exciting! Waiiii, okay, so what do we think, ne? Review! Please! :D Kari...come on, now, hun, I know you must have *something* to say in regards to this, you've only been waiting for it for like...EVER!
Smooches!
~~hikari
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