Chasing the Stars [invite]

[ambermon]

"I meant no such thing you rat. Stop twisting my words!" Amber spat at the Lunamon. Idiot digimon. Why was Dorumon even wasting this time with it? Even if it was a friend in the past, obviously it has been corrupted by its moron of a tamer. "You have no idea how hard it is to live out here when society makes it so hard to live without giving in to the human's destructive life! We don't steal because we want to. We do it only because its the lesser of two evils." She hissed.

Dorumon's tail lashed fiercely. There he went again, mouthing off, while still having no understanding of their situation. Every ounce of him wanted to pounce and let it be done with, but loyalties still hovered over his mind and held him back. He instead spun around, facing his tamer. "Amber, go home, I'd really like to deal with these two on my own." He growled.

Amber's eyes flashed, obviously she hadn't wanted to go. She wouldn't argue with him though. Let him have what fun he had with his 'friend'. They'd talk about this later. "Hurry it up. I won't be gone long if you stay here much longer." She grunted, turning her back and heading away, quietly fuming.

As soon as Amber was out of earshot, Dorumon turned on Lunamon once again. "Don't you think I'd be working for what we need if we could? Don't act like you know our situation, Lunamon. You just got here. You know nothing! You didn't know Amber was constantly abused by her parents for most of her life with them. You didn't know that she takes every little fault of humans as an atrocity. You didn't know she despises the lifestyle they push on everyone."

Of course, the Lunamon went on, and on, and on, and on. Oh, the rabbit did have a knack for long, strung out speeches that tended to get digimon yawning rather than cheering by the time he was completely through. He seriously needed to learn the definition of short and sweet. "Ways, Lunamon? There is no where I've found to get any amount of food required to keep two beings fed. Enlighten me if you will and I'll find if its enough. As my partner already said, we don't steal because we want to. We do it because so far its the only option we are aware of, that is available to us. Your criticisms do not change our situation, so unless you have anything you can say or do that actually will help us, then shut it!."

Oh and those ridiculous ideals of his... One of these days he was going to learn that the world was never going to work the way he wanted them to. "My ideals have not changed or been broken through any fault of my own, Lunamon. The subjects of my ideals just lay in my own world! Also, if you haven't noticed, I've given a girl a friend in a world where she is surrounded by enemies. I've worked hard to help keep her alive, and yes Lunamon, it is work. You may have this idea that stealing is just having other people's items fall into your lap with no effort at all, but it isn't. People aren't helpless to defend their belongings and we have all their efforts to work against. Not only that, but I've maintained it. While you have a second chance at life from giving that to a Biyomon, I have gained a friend in giving one to Amber. The difference between us is that while I'm there to protect Amber from everything that stands against her, the Biyomon you saved was left on her own where she could run into the hands of some other threat out to delete her."

"And that's where the problem with your ideals. Your efforts. You try and protect everyone, but you can't. You save one digimon, but have to abandon them to save another. While you aren't watching they are left vulnerable and end up getting killed by something else while you are busy saving some other digimon. Your intentions may be noble, but the means will never justify the ends, because there isn't going to be an end to your fight. All you will have is the dead bodies of the friends you left alone to be killed while you were too busy trying to save more than you could manage! There will always be fighting Lunamon. No world short of a full population of mindless zombies with no thought of their own will ever live without conflict. We are all individuals and we all have our own ideas. There is always going to be those that won't care for peace. There will always be those who have their own ideals that don't involve saving every last digimon's life. You can't change them all, and you can't protect everyone from them!"

Dorumon's face suddenly teared up and his voice was shakier than ever, though his anger now was mixed with a heavy dose of sorrow. "No matter what good you do here. No matter what good I do here. Our comrades, or friends, our neighbours are fighting a battle they can't win. They are dying and we are here helpless to save them while we are stuck here!" Dorumon suddenly bolted, and slammed right into a tree. Beating himself up hurt, but it did make his emotional pains subside. He lay, curled in a heap, on the ground, tears falling from his eyes and wetting the earth his head rested on. "No amount of good done here will erase the bad that is wrought from our absence in the digital world. I can't handle that guilt no matter what good I do here. My friends and neighbours are what's most important to me. In getting stuck here while they are dying over there, every second I'm away from them, I've failed them. You may think differently enough to get past all that, but can't think like you. I can't."

[Mistral]

"Your partner has too much hatred in her heart. I indeed cannot comprehend why she is like that, but I do know that living fueled by hatred against your own people only for the doings of a few bad ones is one of the worst things you could ever do. Teach her about love and show her that by acting the way she does, she is becoming the very "destructive" monsters she was fighting against, being guilty of commuting the very sins for which she judged mankind in an ironic twist as she still depends of man-made products despite hating everything humans did. You know well what I'm talking about, we witnessed how some evil digimon mercilessly caused us so much pain, yet we cannot judge the entire digimon race as evil and turn our back against our peers only for their actions. As for how to find a way to sustain herself, hermits have since the beginning of time learned how to live off nature and rely no longer in the goods from the civilized world but on what nature and themselves created in co-existence. She can live from the fruits of the forest and create her own farm from the seeds of edible plants in the area. Remember, it was her choice to live as an hermit and decide that all the humans were her enemies, no one pushed her into abandoning civilization and hating the very species she belongs to."

That human girl simply could never understand it because she never felt what was true love. All he did until now was out of pure love for the gatomon whom he loved but died saving others and for the sake of the ideals for a better world they shared while she, judging for what the dorumon said, hated everything about mankind. She would someday learn that all living beings are equally able of good and evil, and that day she was finally going to become a better person.

That was regarding the human girl, but the situation was as severe if not worse with the dorumon, he dared to say that nothing mattered now that they were trapped in the human world and he HAD to be the girl's only friend in a world where everybody was her enemy.

"If you were a real friend, you would help her too see reality without biased opinions, the way you help her only makes her situation worse as she now depends of you and will never try to contact other humans, you aren't protecting her, you are only sheltering her heart more. And I'm pretty sure the biyomon I saved is safe, the area in which she was was located near where my former comrades lives and I believe one of them managed to find her as we always covered our backs and helped anyone in distress"

Indeed, the biyomon eventually found safety in the numemon bar thanks to one of the ninja brothers Ninjamon and Kogamon and now was learning how to become a productive member of their small community, which was a lot more than what one could say about dorumon, who not only never bothered to help other digimon but actually, unknown to the lunamon, actively hunted down digimon who teamed up with humans or were free and committed the "horrible sin" of feeling sympathy for them

"Only because we no longer are in the digital world doesn't mean we should do nothing to help those who are in the same situation as ourselves. I'm still haunted by the memories of those whom I failed to save and abandoned to die in our beloved homeworld, but that only made my resolution to save as many as I can stronger and I can guarantee you that no one of the digimon I saved died because I personally mapped the human city to find safe routes and safe hours to move around, sharing this information with everybody, and because we never let anyone go outside unless they knew what they were doing."

He paused a little immediately recalled the memories of all the digimon he had helped and those whom he failed to help. In particular, the digimon with the strongest presence in his memories was his more than friend Gatomon, a digimon who truly was a goddess of hope and the one which he wanted to spend his life with. Together, they always dreamed for a peaceful digital world and even now that she was gone, the lunamon continued following the ideals they created together so at least the next generation of digimon would be born in a better world than the one in which who once was a wizardmon lived.

"I cannot force you to immediately change how you act, but at least have in mind that all you do, good or evil, eventually comes back to you. The humans and digimon you either helped or attacked will repay you with the same kind as everything you do always has consequences and no one in invincible or unbeatable. Treat others the same way you would want to be treated."

[ambermon]

Even as he crouched there, sobbing his heart out the Lunamon continued on with his useless criticisms and ignorant assumptions. The pure extent to which were just appalling. "Lunamon, tell me. How would you like it if someone walking up to you and talked to you as if you were complete blind of what was around you, and what efforts you made were non-existent? Because that is exactly what you are doing to me right now. Preaching to me as if I hadn't the slightest idea that my tamer is a hate filled wreck, as if I somehow haven't done enough, and should have completely cured her of her faults in the short time I've been with her. Its not that easy! I can't just turn around and tell her she's wrong and that not all humans are bad. She'd take me for a traitor in a heartbeat! You saw how pissed she was with me just because I was even talking to you!"

He didn't get it. He'd never get it. He was so strung up on his everyone should be friends ideals that he didn't stop to even consider the faults of his plan. "What part of my friends are what is important to me, do you not understand? Lunamon, you may talk big, but you are never going to be a leader when you stretch yourself too far to make any friends. You can rally them up and push them in the right direction, but you'll never unite them. Do you know why we lost that battle? Not because you disappeared. Your presence didn't even make a difference! They were just individual packs going at the same opponent, operating on the strength of numbers alone.

And do you know why Lunamon? Because they don't trust you. You've given them no reason to trust you because you were too busy to even get to know them. They may have followed you into battle because they shared the same enemy, but beyond that nothing. The second the going got tough, many of the squads turned tail and fled, many of those that stayed were reluctant to follow orders. Friendship is what binds digimon together Lunamon, its what keeps us close, its what gives us the motivation to trust and follow eachother, and stand in the face of danger, and it just wasn't there because you never stop to get to know any one, to form any real bond with anyone. We lost that battle before it even started Lunamon. You are going to keep losing battles if you continue to sacrifice friendship for petty numbers. Its that wrong of yours, that's going to continue kicking you in the face."

Dorumon stood up, shaking the dirt off his fur. He was about done here. He was growing tired of this argument."Of course no one is invincible or unbeatable. But I get my strength from my friends, I keep them close to me with loyalty, and I keep their trust by being there for them. Even only a handful of Friends stand stronger in the face of danger, than a hundred loose knit soldiers who barely even know one another, never mind have any loyalty to eachother." He took a few steps away stopping. "Now as much as I love being preached to about things I'm already fully aware of and treated like I've done nothing for someone I've done my best to help, as much as I love listening to you prattle on about your ideals and speak as if my own is utter crap, as much as I love being mindlessly criticized for things I things I have no choice in, I have better things to do. Do me a favor, if you have any plans to continue your little lecture of how you are better than me, then don't cross my path again." Dorumon growled, his words dripping in sarcasm. He then broke into a run, and headed toward home.

[Amber and Dorumon out]

[Mistral]

"There is no one as deaf as the one who refuses to listen. And from all your talk about friendship, I see you not as a friend of the girl but as a tool for her selfish desires."

Those were his final words for the dorumon he once thought was a decent digimon, although most likely he refused to listen to them. The lunamon simply couldn't understand what caused him so much pain and poisoned his mind into becoming that empty shell of what once was a decent and almost likable dorumon. He could hear nothing but the selfish thoughts of his heart and for some reason felt incredibly attached to a girl who simply wasn't worth it. The dorumon himself told him the futility of helping others, but he himself decided to help one who had a poisonous mind and most likely corrupted him. That girl amber, there was something very shady about her as dorumon was not that bad back in the digital world. Could she be the source of his change, or this is how his real self always was? That was a question only then knew and it was a question the lunamon didn't really care about looking for it's answer. The dorumon choose his own path, one flawed and ill fated, but it was his decision and he was going to follow it until the bitter end.

As for Lunamon, he and Mistral simply continued looking for more recently emerged digimon. Unlike Dorumon and his tamer, they had a goal not fueled by hypocrisy nor hatred but to save lives and while the path to walk was harsh and success was never guaranteed, it was worth it.

[thread over]