//------------------------------// // Worth Two in the Bush // Story: Equestria Digital // by DeltaChevron //------------------------------// I emerged from the light of the gate to see a small ocean, a vast lake, or an inland sea. The water was clear, calm, and looked rather shallow. The air was warm and the blue sky above was dotted with large puffy white clouds. In the distance I could hear something running across the water’s surface, it made the distinct slapping noise of a foot in a shallow puddle. I turned around to deal with the gate on this side, a small black cathode ray tube TV. It sat on an island of hexagonal stone that I recognized as basalt. I flipped the TV so it was resting gently on its blank screen, while I did that I got a look at my feet. I wasn’t standing on the island; I was standing on the WATER. As soon as I processed that thought I started o sink, then panic and sink faster. Before the water could pass mid thigh a large brown furred hand gently grabbed my right arm and pulled me up. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” Deep voice, definitely male “The trick to not sinking is to ignore that its water, just pretend its solid ground and you’ll be fine.” I’m slowly lowered to the surface my feet coming to rest solidly on it. “That’s it, took me a week to get that trick right and even then I still fell in a few times, you’re quick learner.” I turned around and found myself looking up into what I had come to know as my own face. His forehead had three horns. His face had white fur in the center of the face, brown around the rest, pink tipped ears and red eyes. He wore the same scarf, pauldron collar, cuirass, and pants that I had. I was looking at the Andiramon, the Rabbit Deva whose form I could take. He was smiling in an amused manner, whether at my sinking or quick learning I would never know. It quickly became a look of concern. “Are you alright, did you get something in your eyes?” I sighed, my eyes must have been bloodshot or something “No, no I am not alright. I could’ve lied and said yes but at this point I’m beyond caring about whether or not I look tough. I made a bit of hasty choice and became a piece in a cosmic chess game. I thought that of everyone I knew I would be able to handle this kind of situation pretty well. Of course I’m wrong again; I can handle fiction and legends being true. I have no problem with the fact that most deities DO actually exist. I don’t even have a problem with being a girl. No, what’s wrong is that people will ignore the truth simply because they don’t want to believe it even when there’s hard evidence staring them right in the face.” “The same can be said of any sentient creature.” “What do you mean?” “Deception is both the greatest gift and the greatest curse of being sentient. As such it is also said that the best lies are things that are at least partially or wholly true. If a sentient creature repeats the same lie enough times then it will forget that it is untrue.” “That seems rather pessimistic, informative and probably true but still rather pessimistic.” He chuckled “After you’ve lived through your first century we’ll compare notes on the nature of such things. If you don’t understand after that then you probably won’t.” “I pray that you’re joking and if you’re not that it’s long life and NOT immortality.” He nodded sagely “Living forever is a terrible thing if you have no one to share your time with. But we have spoken enough of these depressing subjects. Come, I’ll lead you to where Lord Zhuiqomon is waiting for us.” I pushed my sadness down and gave him few seconds head start so I wouldn’t be right on his heels. It took a few minutes for me to get the proper feel for regulating my pace. It just felt so slow to me, like I was jogging just barely above the pace of speed walking. It would have been more annoying if I weren’t trying to catch a glimpse of every single thing we ran past. I could probably spend a lifetime exploring the Digital World and never get any closer to seeing all of it. From the shallow ocean we made our way into a thick jungle. It was clearly well traveled as there were numerous well maintained paths and at one point we passed through the center of a large village where all the buildings stood on stilts. The jungle thinned out into barren rocky lands dotted here and there with small bushes, trees, and scrub vegetation. High up on a hill was what looked distinctly like an evil castle straight out of a fairy tale, dark stone, ominous clouds and all. But what really caught my attention was that there were hundreds of Digimon everywhere. The numbers began to thin as the land grew less and less friendly before finally become an empty endless plain made of some dark hard stone. The farther we traveled the thicker the clouds overhead became till they were a solid mass of dark storm clouds. The thick overhead coverage made the afternoon as dark as late evening. Up ahead in the distance I saw a shimmering light. As we got closer the hazy light resolved itself into the massive form of Zhuqiamon. We stopped about 200 feet in front of him, Andiramon dropping to one knee. “My Lord, I have done as you commanded and brought your champion before you.” “You may leave Andiramon. I shall call you again when we have need of you.” Andiramon stood up and gave a simple nod in response. As he walked past he stopped to pat me on the head. Rather than be annoyed by it I almost felt a sort of comfort, like when my brother and I were little and I could tell him anything. It took about a minute for him to get out of my hearing range. The entire time I just stood there silently waiting to be addressed. “If I’m your Champion I insist on being called El Cid Campeador.”I spoke without any enthusiasm what so ever. “Bad day?” he asked My only answer was to give him a shrug. “I told them it was a bad idea to let you go.” He sighed and started slowly preening “I had no problems with giving you a new digivolution but I had a feeling letting you go to the human world would only end in disappointment. “Silence “For whatever its worth to you, know that I am sorry for the pain you must be feeling right now, physical and emotional. I’d also like to apologize, it’s our fault they won’t completely believe you, no matter how much they want to.” I narrowed my eyes “Explain.” “We, that is to say we the Sovereigns, are always using a portion of our power to keep you hidden from notice and detection. Princess Luna would never have truly known you are a game piece if Alice hadn't shown up. Also, if someone is actively seeking to find you but doesn’t who you are or that you are you then it will be impossible for them to truly find you or believe that you were the human you know you once were.” Lighting flashed and thunder rumbled overhead “So it is your fault.” He hesitated for a second “Yes, it is.” I needed to be stronger if I was really going to hurt him. I probably wouldn’t be able to killhim but I could probably do some serious damage to him before he finally got fed up and killed me. The lightning flashes became more frequent and the peals of thundered grew louder as the center of the storm shifted. It was time to try out Battle Mode. I felt a massive surge of power rush through my body. I felt my clothes change, pants and shirt becoming a tight bodysuit of Blue Digizoid fabric, except around the neck where it became Red. My vest changed to Red Digizoid plating which also appeared on my arms and legs over top of the body suit. Gauntlets made from Gold Digizoid plates attached to Red Digizoid fabric appeared on my hands. Where the gauntlets covered the backs of my hands there was a pair of bolt like studs. Plates of Gold Digizoid also covered the outer of my arms, elbows, the front of my knees, down my shins, encased my shoes, and covered my shoulders. Red Digizoid plates covered the underside of my arms and my inner thighs. My Holy Rings snapped in place on my right and left wrist as my hair shortened and a simple open faced Red Digizoid helmet dropped onto my head. It was decorated with a pair of ear like tassels. Before Zhuqiamon could even blink my fist had connected with tip of his beak creating a hairline fracture in it, there was also a loud crack as my fist passed though the sound barrier, and the hit sent him hurtling through the air. He managed to right himself and hovered in the air a smirk on his face. He seemed to enjoy being hit. “Tell me why you hit me.” “If you knew it would be a bad idea you should have tried harder to tell me! Instead you let me go out and make an idiot of myself. I’m all for acting silly but not for doing stupid things!” I hit him again this time dropping down from left side. This time he did smash into the ground the force of his impact pulverizing the rock around him “You can’t go back to Equestria, not like this.” Cherubimon, think. I raised a hand to the sky “Heaven’s Judgement.” Hundreds of bolts of blue-white lightning struck the ground most of them missing Zhuqiamon. At over 53 and a half thousand degrees Fahrenheit the lightning was several magnitudes hotter than the ground would ever be able to bear. Whatever didn’t sublimate was quickly turned into an enormous vitrified mass. The fact that the Sovereigns were in a league of their own was soundly reinforced when Zhuqimon took to the air again without a single black mark. “You do know you’re flying right?” he asked me. “Why can’t I go back?” “You’re wound up so tight I’m surprised your head hasn’t come off yet. For a normal human bottling up your emotions for several years can be a bad thing. As a Digimon the length of time is even shorter and on Equis emotions are often amplified. If you go back in your current emotional state…well it’d be cataclysmic.” I hung my head as I looked at the damaged landscape and knew that he was right. “So get it out of your system!” My head snapped up fast enough to hurt “What?” He rolled his eyes, all six of them “Attack me, scream, shout, cry, yell about everything that is causing you pain, whatever. You don’t need quiet therapy you need something active.” I blinked. He spread his wings “Now hit me again! Tell me why you’re upset, why you hurt.” I couldn’t believe it. Zhuqiamon, who dislikes humans and has no sympathy for the weak, was offering himself up as my personal punching bag and shoulder to cry on. I took a shuddering breath and let myself go. Anger, depression, grief, sorrow, all of it, I let it all jump out of the places it was being forced into. I had to work very hard to keep myself from losing control and turning into an evil version of myself. I attacked again and again and again. All the while I told him things. Stuff I’d never told anyone, not even the therapist my parents and I went to to help me deal with my Asperger’s syndrome when we still thought it was ADD and ADHD. I told him about Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Elementary, Middle, and High School. I told him about my failure the first year out of high school and the death of both of my grandfathers. At about hour four into the battle the clouds finally started to rain throwing up clouds of steam from the molten parts of the landscape. At hour five Zhuqiamon had started lightly fighting back, a wing hit here, a small flame burst there. Finally at hour seven I collapsed on a sand pile that had once been a small hill before I missed a punch. I was sobbing and hiccupping, my tears having long since run out and the rain continued to fall. I curled up physically and emotionally spent having just bared my soul before someone who was probably the most ruthless and Darwinistic of the Sovereigns. There was a crunch as he landed, I closed my eyes and waited for the killing blow. It never came, instead the rain suddenly stop falling on me, the cold was replaced by a steady warmth and I saw a gentle light though my eyelids. “Sleep.” He gently commanded Falling asleep that close to him was probably something I shouldn’t do but I was far to exhausted to care. I don’t know how long I was asleep but I woke feeling…different. I hadn’t transformed or anything in my sleep, no extra limbs, eyes or organs either. I lay there on the ground staring up at the cloudy sky trying to identify what I was feeling. I got sidetracked thinking about how peaceful the grey clouds and the newly pond dotted landscape looked. That’s when I realized what it was, for the first time in my life, that I could remember, I was truly at peace. A voice came from my left “Glad to see you are awake.” I recognized Andiramon’s voice and lazily rolled over to look at him, a small smile of contentment on my face. In the distance I could see Zhuqiamon as a large reddish smudge facing an even smaller blackish speck. If I wanted to I could probably listen in on their conversation but I decided to let them have their privacy. If it was relevant to me someone would tell me about eventually. “If I was a dog my tail would be wagging in happiness right now. I’ve never felt so good before.” His lips twitched with an almost smile “Inner peace will do that to you. I’ll teach you how to maintain and return to it later.” He sat down “Starting today I’ll be teaching you how to fight. I was told you have something you’re calling ‘Battle Instincts’. I’m afraid I don’t really understand what you mean by that. Would you be willing to explain it to me?” I rolled over onto my stomach arms stretched out toward him “You have instincts right? This smells good so it probably, this thing causes pain so it’s probably bad, stuff like that.” A nod “Well this is kinda like that and kinda like muscle memory. When I fight my body seems to know what to do and I just follow the impulses. But I can’t control them or use them outside of battle. As a side note I’m also having more trouble controlling my other impulses.” He pulled on one of his ears “The second problem is easy enough either ignore them or regulate your power if you do act on it.” He nibbled the tip “The first problem is a little harder. It sounds like someone has given you the ability to fight and do those other things but not the knowledge. A few weeks going through proper forms and a little practice should fix that.” “She’ll also need some weapons training.” Spooked I suddenly found myself sixty feet in the air and thirty feet to the left of where I had been laying. I was about ten feet above the new comer’s head putting his height at about fifty feet. His armor was purplish black in color. His feet had three claws extending from the front of his boots. He stood with his arms crossed in front of his broad chest. His red eyes seemed amused by my reaction. The rest of his head was concealed beneath his helmet which looked like an oddly shaped skull but for some reason I thought it also looked like it was crossed with a grinning baleen whale. This was Craniummon, one of the thirteen Royal Knights who guarded the security of the Digital World. He laughed the sound coming from deep in his chest “Ahahahaha! I’ve never been compared to a whale before but I think I find it quite endearing. We’ll have to add empath and flight training to the list as well and of course you’ll also be receiving magic training as well.” At my confusion he elaborated “You’re an empath now you can sense people’s feelings. But its two way street, I don’t know what kind of whale you were thinking of just that it had some sort of connection to me. With proper training you can keep stuff like that to yourself and influencing another person's mood without being them being able to do the opposite.” “What about the magic?” I asked “We can work on that right now. But first you might want to land.” The nice thing about the Digital World was that you didn’t have to eat, sleep, or drink unless you wanted to. Periodic breaks were necessary to help prevent eventual exhaustion but sleep itself was unnecessary. Magic was…interesting to say the least and as it turned out Digimon attacks were magic. All magic was based on command and intent, being an instant polyglot certainly helped a little. It wasn’t enough to just speak the words you had to understand what they meant on your own. As I learned I we discovered that the older the spoken language the stronger the potential spell. While most pieces would probably go with Latin I decided to use Gaelic A) because it was older and B) I knew like five words in Latin. He ended up calling in Duftmon when I showed him I could use my attacks without having to shout out the name. To say Duftmon was curious and delighted is like saying the SR-71 was a little fast, huge understatement. I probably learned as much from him as he did from me. When actually got to the point that I could fight without relying on impulse and instinct we had to call in Sleipmon to be my sparring partner so I could learn to control just how much power I put into each hit. The one time Craniummon sparred with me I almost put hole straight through his shoulder. I was also able to get my flight training done at the same time because Sleipmon had the greatest mobility and flight experience of all the Knights. I think I enjoyed my empathy training the most. It mainly consisted of lying around doing nothing and just feeling the world around me. The fact that it was done with me laying on top of the tree on Xuanwumon’s back was just a bonus. While the Knights made no attempt to mask their strength with Xuanwumon I had no idea just how strong he was until the first day of training. I could feel his heavily restrained power when I touched the top most leaves. If the Royal Knights were supposed to be high class infantry that made the Sovereigns something like tanks, artillery, or close air-support. As strong as the Knights were unless they all went after one of the Sovereigns they would lose. Before I knew it eight weeks had passed and the training was done. Not once during that time did I lose the amazing feeling of being at piece. The last hours of my training were spent with Andiramon teaching me how to maintain that state and reach that state should I ever lose it. We were at the reflecting pool where I had first arrived and everyone else was there. They all gave me some last minute advice as we said our goodbyes. If I ever tired of Equestria, the Digital World would be a place I could always call home. With that happy thought I stepped through the portal and back to Equestria.