Ruins Fusion Frenzy Pt.11

Beeku:

Faith nodded to show she was listening to Emily. When nothing else was said she added "You now know about the virus core digimon like Lapis" This was a new thing. "And you know about digimon getting infected." Just like the eggs at primary village. Faith had no doubt that it could be linked with her partner's origins...possibly. Faith felt a tug on the line, followed by a big jolt. She stood up as she started reeling in the line manually. One hand over the other, one hand over the other.

"Lapis" Faith kicked her digimon awake. Lapis responded with a grunt. "Here it comes. DO NOT bite it" Faith knew this would make things harder for them to reel the fish in.

"Got 'cha" Lapis knew why Faith made this odd request. He stood by the water's edge staring into the water. "Woah, it's huge!"

VelkynKarma:

"Yeah, that too." Emily sighs slightly. "To be honest that one's going to take a bit of time to wrap my head around. There's a puzzle in there somewhere to figure out, but, I'm shocked to say it, I am too wiped out to figure it out at the moment." She definitely would like to examine the Virus Core and related infections more deeply to try and figure out what it was all about and--perhaps--to find a way to fix it, but that's just too much to handle on top of their current predicament.

She blinks when Faith catches something and starts pulling it in. "At least our luck has shifted a little…do you need help?"

Rideremon jumps awake when the commotion from the fish starts, and looks over Emily's lap hungrily at the fish. "It's real big," he agrees with Lapis. "Faith you're like the best fisher ever." Then he licks his tiny lips, already anticipating dinner.

Beeku:

Faith was concentrating on manually reeling the line in herself that she didn't hear the compliment. There were a few times when the fish would fight back and pull at it hard enough to generate friction on her leather glove. Faith worried it might catch fire, but she kept pulling anyways. Lapis stood by the banks waiting for the fish to make it to shallow waters. "Oi Rideremon ya can help drag too" it was getting close enough.

Faith physically backed up and started winding the line around a tree trunk so the fish wouldn't drag her into the water. "Ready Emily?" Faith was grinning. This was something she would write home about. “In your face dad”

VelkynKarma:

Rideremon perks up when Lapis calls him, and bounces out of Emily’s lap, scrabbling over near Lapis on the other side of the line. “Awesome!” he says enthusiastically, eyes lighting up at the prospect of both a “battle” and dinner. He crouches as best as he can when he’s little more than a bowling ball with feet, waiting for the signal. 

Emily hauls herself to her feet as soon as Rideremon exits her lap and nods. “Sure…just let me know how to help.” 

Beeku:

"Aim fer da head. Imma grab it's tail" Lapis wriggled his butt in anticipation. 
"Emily the branches Lapis knocked down" Faith gestured for the large limb while thinking on her feet. "Use it to block it's escape like a net" 

The fish on the line had enough. It thrashed it's body, springing it clear from the water's surface. Droplets of water shone on it's silver scales and spiny fins before it landed back in the water. 
"I think it might jump again guys!" Faith warned everyone. 

VelkynKarma:

Crocutamon nods in agreement. “I can get its head!” He agrees, digging his claws into the mud. He jumps slightly when the fish jumps, but since Lapis doesn’t move for it, he waits too.

Emily nods hastily at Faith’s instructions and scrambles for one of the branches that Lapis had knocked down earlier. She picks it up and heads over near the Digimon, holding the leafy branch at the ready. “Faith, when it jumps again can you pull it closer, while it’s in the air? Not as much water resistance. If we can tug it close enough to the shore the Digimon can grab it and I can block it from getting back to deep water.” 

Beeku:

"Right" Faith felt the line tug again as the fish struggled to get back. She gave it some slack so the line didn't snap. Suddenly the tension between her and the fish dropped. "Guys it's going to jump" Faith started reeling before it even breached the surface. 

Lapis already had his eye on the line instead of the find of the fish that WAS exposed. He didn't need Faith's warning before he got ready to pounce. He managed to latch onto the delicate fin of the fish, clamping his jaws on the non fleshy bits- lest he poison the entire meat

"That's it Lapis" Faith cheered. She held the line steady while adjusting to the weight of the fish. It had been dragged to a shallower bank. In fact her partner was bobbing along with the flailing of the fish. He had to hold his breath when the fish dunked him under the water. "Alright, hopefully it'll loose it's fight when he keep it's gills out." Faith wanted to get this over with before her partner drowned. 

VelkynKarma:

Rideremon watches in excitement as Faith reels in the fish more, and then Lapis pounces. “Get it!” he cheers, and bounds closer, waiting for an opportunity to help.

Emily hastily kicks off her flip-flops, wades ankle-deep in the water, and shoves her branch into the water between the fish and any escape. With her tongue stuck out in concentration, she carefully tries to close in behind like a net, nudging the fish—and bobbing Digimon—closer to land. 

Rideremon, sensing his opportunity, leaps forward and, after a couple tries, manages to sink his own sharp little teeth into the back of the fish’s head. He immediately flails his little paws, scrabbling for purchase as he tries to help drag the fish back up towards land. “Yr dinner, fith!” he growls with his mouth full.

Beeku:

Lapis gasped for air again when the fish's tail breached the surface, but barely. He could tell it was getting weaker when he stayed submerged longer. Still though he clutched it's tail, keeping it rooted so the fish wouldn't turn around. 

"That's it guys" Faith moved one hand over the other to keep the tension on the line as she approached it. Already they managed to get it shallow enough to keep it's head out of the water. The fish snarled at Faith and tried to snap at her. Faith paused, keeping her distance from it. Was she feeling brave to pull it out? Not really. "This is one angry fish" she murmured dryly. At least it's struggling was getting weaker now. 

VelkynKarma:

"Angry, but I'm not surprised," Emily agrees, even as she continues to shove the mass of Digimon and fish towards the muddy bank. "It's made out of data. Presumably that same data could be used to make an angry fish Digimon. Or maybe it's just a survivor." She grimaces a little either way.

Rideremon finally feels sandy mud under his little feet and digs his stubby claws in, snarling fiercely as he starts to backpedal onto the land and drag the fish after him, digging his little teeth further into the fish's scales as he does so. "Juth gif up, fith!" he yells. "We win, tho there!"

Beeku:

Faith's eyes studied the fish intently as it flopped around. They should really put it out of its misery, suffocation wasn't the best way to go. Faith reached over her thigh where the hunting knife was strapped. "You may want to avert your eyes Emily" With one fluid motion Faith had undone the strap holding the knife in place and pulled it out. She gripped it tightly as she drove it between the fish's eyes. It's skull was pretty thick, and she was almost certain the blade would have snapped off the handle, but it did its job. The fish fell limp. 

"Pffft bleh gvhjkgf" Lapis surfaced after he sensed the life leave the giant fish. He beamed proudly at his partner when he saw her handy work. Lapis tried to dog paddle his way back to shore with his stumpy limbs, but the waves from the struggling fish pushed him back out further in the water. Lapis flailed trying to fight against the flow of water until his back gently touched the branches Emily was using to trap the fish. "Nice catch" Lapis turned to cling to the limb for dear life. Water clung to his short fur, giving it an almost black appearance. 

VelkynKarma:

“Woah,” Rideremon says, spitting out the fish head, eyes wide for a moment as he stares at the knife in the fish, and then at Faith. “Wow. Are you sure maybe you’re not part Digimon?” A second later, his turns back to look at the now dead digital fish, licking his lips. “Can we eat it yet?”

Emily winces slightly and looks away as Faith gives her warning and holds the knife. It’s necessary and was probably kinder than letting it effectively drown on air, but that doesn’t mean Emily wants to watch if she can avoid it. She settles instead for watching Lapis in the water, and when he starts clinging to her tree branch she crouches down and scoops him up out of the water to give him a break. She tosses the limb on the bank as she wades back out of the deeper water, ends of her jeans now all soaked and dripping. 

Beeku:

Faith let out the air in her lungs she had unwittingly held onto. "Not at all Rideremon" Faith shook her wrist to try and release the tension in it. "My father used to take my family to the cottage in the countryside every summer. He taught me how to fish" Faith grinned "and how to clean one before cooking." When Rideremon asked if he could just dig in she shook her head. "I should at least cut off a piece for Lapis- if he bites into this, his saliva alone can get Emily and I sick" the tips of her fingers brush against her lower lip as if recalling a learning experience of their first few days of partner hood. 

Lapis had that perma frown on his face as he grumbled, but his body rumbled as if he was purring too. His little paws stretched out towards the direction of the fish- or was he trying to get Faith's attention? It was hard to tell really, but it was probably the food option. Lapis yawned, exposing the tiny rows of teeth that were crammed into his mouth before settling down. He was a lot more docile in his in training form. "It's a good thing we didn't fish up a seadramon" he commented out of the blue. "Or a shellmon." He squirmed out of Emily's grip once she was on shore, prancing a few paces away to dry himself. He took care not to hit Emily with stray drops. 

"Rideremon do you think you could get a small fire going? I'd like to dry off my clothes" Faith requested. Her hands returned to the knife embedded in the skull of the fish as she tried to get her knife back. It was stuck, no matter how much she wriggled the knife it refused to come out. She scoffed and gave up after getting some fish guts all over her sleeve. 

VelkynKarma:

“Well I’d believe it if you were,” Rideremon says with a grin. “But that’s cool that you can do that stuff. Emily’s boring like that, she never went outside before she met me!” 

“I was a bookworm,” Emily counters, letting go of Lapis as he squirms out of her arms. “It would have been a crime to go outside where the great burning orb in the sky was.” She raises an eyebrow a moment later at Faith’s explanation about Lapis. “Wow…his saliva is really that potent? Huh.” She can’t help but wonder how they made that little discovery. 

Rideremon bounces impatiently in place, but his expression grows apologetic at Faith’s request. “I can’t make fire in this form,” he admits. “I can do it when I’m a Rookie but not when I’m Rideremon.” He brightens. “But if I get to eat then I can digivolve and make you a fire!” 

“Patience, Rideremon,” Emily says, shaking her head. She eyes the knife as Faith tries to pull it out. “Wow…that thing is really in there, isn’t it?”

Beeku:

"Well if humans become data when entering the digital world, then it's safe to say we're both made of the same things right now" She teased him. "But a good book is also hard for me to pass off." Sometimes she felt like there wasn't enough time in the world to do EVERYTHING she wanted to do. 

"I prefer a quiet human than a braggart human" Lapis piped up. "It's always "my family this" and "The Morrigans" that" Lapis stuck out his tongue at Faith. 

"Well as far as I know it affects humans only." Faith shrugged "It would be in bad taste to really confirm it with other people" She flashed the pair a smirk "Unless you're up for that type of gamble?" not that Faith would let either of them try it. 

"Yeah Fai had to go to da hospital to get her stomach pumped" Lapis piped up. "I only took one bite outta her sammich too"

Faith gave up on the knife. "I was afraid it would bite me if I didn't hit it hard enough" she hooked her hand into it's gills to drag it over to the bank where Emily and Lapis were waiting. "I'm sure Lapis can break the skull when he digivolves, so the knife isn't a lost cause" it was also easy to buy another one. 

Lapis went into Faith's bag- surely there was a spare...she usually did when she packed her full adventuring gear. 

VelkynKarma:

“Oh,” Rideremon says, thinking about this. “I guess you’re right. You’re like a Digi-hu-mon right now. Hah!” He grins at his own joke. Then he glances at Lapis. “Quiet isn’t ALWAYS good,” he says. “Sometimes it’s nice but sometimes you wanna go outside and play or have an adventure or go meet friends and it’s all ‘nooo, I gotta finish with these notes’ or ‘sorry, too busy with this essay’ or ‘but I’m at the best part of the book I can’t leave now!’ “ He snorts.

“Hey, I’ve compromised since then,” Emily counters. “I’ve been bringing my research and books to the Lune gardens more often, haven’t I?”

“That’s not the point!” Rideremon says with a mock scowl. 

Emily snorts, and then shakes her head at Faith. “I think I’ll pass. Not much of a gambler. I wouldn’t mind taking a look under a microscope but I’d call it quits at being a guinea pig for live testing.” She winces at the thought of having to get one’s stomach pumped…especially after all this. “Are we going to be okay with the fish then? I mean…we could probably go without,” Emily gesture at herself and Faith, “but Rideremon’s gotta eat at least if he’s going to be able to evolve to Boremon to fly us out of here, and I definitely don’t want him to get sick.” The virus potentially attacking his core was bad enough as it was.

Beeku:

"Unless yer a klutz ya dun need a human to supervise yer playtime" Lapis never had to ask Faith if he wanted to play outside. He simply went. That would be as ridiculous as asking her permission to go to the bathroom. A digimon needed outdoor space to run around and exerciser. It had been that way since the dot digimon era. Lapis looked like he was going to make a snarky comment, but instead shook his head violently and headbutted a nearby rock, striking himself right between the eyes. "Shut up, no one wants your opinion" he hissed under his breathe. Lapis shook himself off before padding back over to Emily. Getting closer to the light shard she had with her made him sigh in relief. 

"Naturally. I wouldn't know how to treat you guys when you poisoned yourselves." Faith only meant that as a joke, but it was cute Emily took her so seriously. "Lapis has shared food with other digimon in the past, so I'm sure it's safe." She hesitated "But let's take some caution with Rideremon's infection." She turned to the small digimon in question "You should help yourself first. Lapis won't poison you if you just dig in first"

"No fair!" Lapis sulked. He growled at Faith who shot him a look. "Come on! He's a digi ain't he?" his accent was starting to come back. "I say he'll be fine with a little bit. Da worst he'd get is a"
"Hush Lapis" Faith pinched the bridge of her nose. She could feel a migraine happening. "Don't make me sit on you" The blue digimon started weighing his options. He could totally still do a lot of dagage should she choose to engage Faith in a light scuffle. Unfortunately Rideremon and Emily were here, and with Rideremon closer to the meal, he was at a disadvantage. He sat down and scowled at his tamer. 

VelkynKarma:

“I’m not a klutz!” Rideremon says, scowling a little. “I just get worried about Emily on her own is all. It’s not like she’s got powers or anything. It’s my job to protect her.” He puffs up his body in what he assumes is a proud and fierce pose—hard to actually pull off when you’re a soccer ball with legs. 

He deflates a little when he spots Lapis’ clear argument with himself, and frowns a little—not at Lapis himself, but at whoever is inside his head getting mouthy again. 

“No, but if I do get to study that stuff, maybe I can figure out what could be used to counteract it,” Emily says, looking genuinely thoughtful. “Well. That’s a project for another day.” 

Rideremon looks delighted at FINALLY getting the go-ahead to eat, and bounces towards the fish. He pauses when Lapis complains though, and grins as cheerfully as he can (to be both friendly to Lapis and to piss off whatever’s arguing in his head). “Don’t worry! I’ll leave you some!” Then he falls on the fish with abandon, digging in his little claws and tearing at the scales and flesh beneath with a surprising degree of hunger-born savagery.

“Ugh,” Emily mutters, watching a few bits of scale go flying. “Never get between a Digimon and his meal.” 

Beeku:

Lapis yawned, displaying his fangs once again. He never really thought about having to defend Faith, in fact he had often play-wrestled her just as a bonding experience. He looked over Emily, scrutinizing her. Flip flops weren't practical in rough terrain, especially if things were falling from the sky. She had a stance that seemed mouse like- in that Emily was trying not to get in the way or wanted to withdraw. She was clutching her notebook too, and while Faith was an intellectual, Lapis also knew if he were to lunge at her now, Faith would not hesitate to hit him with a anything she was holding. "If Ya two didn't show as much mercy as ya do, maybe ya wouldn't have so many enemies out ta git Emily" he concluded murmuring to himself- unless that wasn't him. Lapis suspected that wasn't entirely his line of thought. 

"If there weren't people like Emily who wanted to unravel the secrets of the universe, we'd still believe in witch hunts and blame everything on curses." Faith spoke up playing devil's advocate. "We wouldn't have had inventions like bicycles and planes- or even computers. Without smart people computers and data wouldn't exists" She flashed the two digimon a charming smile "So give her a break, Emily has her own special skill sets"

"Yer only speakin' up because ya like verbal fights" Lapis grumbled. He was glaring at the morsel he had to ignore. Self control was not something he practiced often, but boy was Rideremon making it really hard not to charge at him right now. He kicked up some dirt contemplating it. It would be sooooo easy to punt the soccer ball into the water. 

Faith made a point to not look while the fish was being devoured. She was carefully going over her things in her bag- Lapis had been rifling through them, and if they have been in his mouth then Faith needed to sanitize them before the trace molecules of toxins got on her hands and she touched her face with it. She was being very diligent placing everything back into their proper place. "It is like a feeding frenzy at a zoo" She commented idly. 

VelkynKarma:

Rideremon scowls in the middle of devouring his half of the fish, glaring at Lapis over it as the other Digimon insults his Tamer. He bristles and looks like he wants to start arguing himself, but Faith fortunately speaks up at that moment (and does a much better job making an argument than he probably would have). “Yeah, what she said,” he nods in agreement, before digging back into his dinner. 

Emily doesn’t take as much offense to Lapis’ comment as her Digimon does, but that isn’t exactly surprising. It isn’t the first time her worth has been questioned for being ‘the smart one’ rather than a more intensive fighter like some of the other Crests represent. There was a time she even doubted her own right to be in the Sol, which was otherwise comprised of very go-getter personalities and action-oriented Crests. Compared to those holding Courage, Knowledge doesn’t exactly look appealing. 

Fortunately she’s had time to come to terms with it, and offers her usual observation. “If the Digital World didn’t value Knowledge as a strength, it wouldn’t have made it one of the nine core Crest components. If you look at the records for the first Digidestined, Izzy was invaluable as a member. Of course, that’s why they also function in combination with each other—to balance strengths and weaknesses.” 

Rideremon finishes mauling his half of the fish. He glances down at it a little longingly, but then looks up at Lapis and sighs a little before backing away. “I hope we get a big dinner when we’re home,” he says to Emily hopefully. 

“Very big. Promise. Ready to see if this worked?” She pulls out her iPod Digivice and holds it up. When Rideremon nods in agreement, she flicks through the iPod settings until she finds the folder with her Digimon’s data, and taps one option. “Here goes nothing…”

For a moment nothing happens, but then Rideremon flashes white and grows bigger, until he’s Crocutamon again. Other than the large black spot on one back foot, he looks the same as before. He shakes out his mane, and then grins up at the humans. “So much better!” he says enthusiastically. “Oh, and I promised…” He quickly drags a few branches together into a clearer area and spits a few Spell Embers into their midst, starting a small fire. “There ya go, Faith, one fire like I said I’d make!”

Beeku:

Lapis shrugged. Datamon too also valued knowledge, so much so that an underling was created for the purpose of gathering intelligence for Lapis. "Yer a lot like another virus core I know" his sanguine eyes flickered with an ominous light. "He had his uses" Lapis didn't exactly hate smart people, they were just boring to play with. 

Once Rideremon backed off from the fish, Lapis wasted no time tearing into it. His powerful jaws crunched on the fish's bone, slurping out it's delicious marrow. It took an awfully long time for him to grind up the bones, so he abandoned the cause and went straight to finishing up the meat. Had he the time and was in his own territory, Lapis would have gnawed even the leftover bones for extra calcium and buried the bones so no other predators were attracted to the food. For now just leaving this here would do. Cleaning off his muzzle, he managed to digivolve into his rookie form. "Awwww yeah!" His arrogant smirk returned. 

"Thank you" Faith smiled gratefully as she sat by the fire. She had unlaced her boots and pulled off her socks so they could dry faster. Faith wriggled her toes while letting them get used to the feeling of dirt between her toes. Uncharacteristically, her nails were painted with a soft robin egg blue with 'cute' flowers in them. "Crocutamon?" Faith tried to study his face and body language for any drastic changes. She carefully picked her words- because just asking if he felt normal was probably going to be a yes. "Do you feel anxious? I don't have an answer on how to help Lapis, there is no promise I might be able to get rid of the alpha virus. Do you have a handle on it?"

VelkynKarma:

“Er. Thanks…I think,” Emily says to Lapis, blinking a little, not entirely sure if that was intended as a compliment or not. Her eyes widen when she watches Lapis maul his half of the fish…and she thought her Digimon had been messy. The way Lapis tore into dinner reminded her an awful lot of some of those documentaries on savannah lifestyle, when the prides of lions completely tore apart an animal. 

Or, she thinks, somewhat in amusement, maybe more comparable to a pack of hyenas, the way he’s taking apart the bones too. Finally shaking her head, she sits down near the fire Crocutamon made, letting the hem of her jeans start to dry out.

Crocutamon settles down next to the fire near the humans (and the Light shard) and waits for them to be ready enough to go. At this point he just wants to be out of here—this adventure stopped being fun a while ago. His ears flick up when Faith addresses him, and he rolls his eyes up like he’s thinking very hard on the question. 

“No stupid voices,” he says finally. “That’s good, right? No jerks telling me what to do.” He shifts a little. “I don’t know if I’m anxious though. I mean like…I really just wanna get Emily outta here. This place is dumb. This adventure sucks.” He scowls a moment, and then shakes his head. “But that’s normal right?” He glances in Lapis' direction, unsure.