Spirits of the Forest [mireil]

[Observer]

- Evil Flame dragon! - grim words were echoing through the forest, followed by a recognizable sound of gusts of fire, and screeches of horrible pain and anguish. Those sounds gave warning to anybody venturing there to just turn back and walk away, and not to entangle with powers that be. Ones who would dare venturing to see what was going on, would soon gaze upon the dance of black flames taking place on a small clearing in the middle of the forest...

The battlefield was charred and black from the fires unleashed by both opponents, which were formidable and destructive enough on their own. A vicious gorillamon - a mighty beast with a plasma cannon for a hand, and a Youkomon - a bewitching beast which was told to bring doom and misery wherever she goes. There was something odd about that one though - a disfiguring scar covered roughly a half of her face, and only one eye was gleaming in the light of her dark fires - one was missing.

And it seemed the gorillamon was loosing this fight - his body was also charred and burnt, and he barely stood, to weak even to unleash a final attack, or even a roar. The youkomon however, looked like she did not fight at all, and it was a truth - she simply outmaneuvered the gorillamon, and struck every shot true... Now it was time to finish this...

- AAAAARGH! - the gorilla screamed in pain as his body was once again engulfed in searing black flame, which consumed him, and broke him into nothing but pixels - this was good, for a charred body would have been to ugly of a sight to see. The battle was over, the youkomon was victorious...

- I do not like this form... - Renee complained to herself as she approached the place where gorillamon once stood. His body was shattered into pixels, which, one by one, were going up in the air, back into the digital world. The youkomon did not absorb them, letting them go, but she did snatch one of the smaller data shards for herself - as a memory. She looked upon the scorned clearing, which was once a battlefield again...

- Too messy. No subtlety at all... - she sounded a bit disappointed with herself - she was always trained to fight subtly, as an assassin, without overkill or anything - swift, efficient. Seeing a smaller fire nearby, she put it out with her paw. This ... was not her way, she was not taught to fight like a fire-wielding magic creature. The battle did tire her magic abilities out, however. She needed some rest. That in mind, she lied down on the ground, she decided to take a little break before moving out again...

[Mirei]

"Eeeek, fire, fire!"

The smoke coming from a noisy area of the forest heralded the beginning of a forest fire, and the nature lover palmon was running after the scene of the battle between a youkomon and a gorillamon with an improvised bucket made of large leaves at hand, full with what little water the palmon could gather inside it.

A forest fire wasn't something to take lightly, a mere cigarette carelessly tossed on dry weed could soon generate a fire that would engulf the entire area and destroy what took so much time for nature to create, the palmon loved almost everything in the world and one of the few things she hated were people who hurt plants and nature and those who recklessly started fires. She ran as fast as possible and to her horror, that part of the forest was completely burnt and covered in pitch black ashes. She dropped the improvised leaf bucket and then noticed who was the culprit: an huge purple fox digimon who had "evil forest burning digimon" written everywhere in her face and what's more, she was missing an eye and within it the palmon could see nothing but the darkness of the youkomon's very soul, a being who enjoyed pointless destruction.

"S-stay away from the forest, you bad digimon. I-I'm not letting you hurt nature anymore!!"

The palmon was still a bit scared from her encounter with two bad digimons, a dracmon and a dorumon, so it was terrible to know that even more bad digimon lurked in the forest, and this one was big and completely charred an entire circular area around her. She couldn't help but shiver as she buried the roots in her legs on the soil for support and braced herself in front of the "bad" digimon, ready to defend the place that was home for many plants and animals. She was a digimon who was easy to scare and she also was a pacifist digimon who preferred to never fight if possible, but if something threatened her friends or nature, she was brave ... or foolish enough to stand up and face the evildoers.

[Observer]

Renee almost fell asleep by now - that fight took more energy out of her than she originally thought - if during it she felt no weariness at all, now she felt she would not be able to summon a fireball even if it were to save her life - a result of a prolonged firefight with that gorillamon. She was awaken by somebody's voice. Who was it, another enemy? Renee turned her head to face the one calling out for her - making an eye contact immediately.

It seemed to be some flowery digimon. A palmon, or an aruraumon, the overgrown fox wasn't sure. She remembered fighting one like her some day in the past however. Not that it mattered. The digimon was angry at her for burning the place, and had every right to be that way - her fight left an entire clearing scorned of all life - not even a blade of grass survived in that sea of fire that engulfed this place. And knowing how most plant digimon cherished nature, Renee knew where that anger came from. Fortunately for the flower digimon, she was not in the mood to argue about it.

- The grass will grow back... - the youkomon replied distantly. - Ash will make the soil more fertile, and wind will bring seeds of plants, from which new life will be born. A season will pass, and only char on several trunks will remind of what happened here... - she mused, though it was probably for herself, not for the palmon - that little critter, while determined, won't likely dare doing anything against a mighty youkomon, who was intimidating enough even without her scar.

- This battle I didn't choose however... I came at a place where a digimon appeared. He looked lost, and I offered to guide him to a shelter for those like him. My good intentions were answered with blaster fire. So I deleted him. - the last sentence sounded icily cold. But the statements were true - starting from a certain day, Renee stopped attacking digimon from ambush like she used to, and was trained to. Instead, she offered each a chance, even if it compromised her element of surprise. That was a result of an influence of a certain person she knew...

- I do not recall seeing you here before though. Are you also lost? Maybe you need to be shown a way to the shelter for digimon who had a misfortune to end up here? - the youkomon sounded rather kind towards the palmon though - she did not look like she was going to stir trouble...

[Mirei]

Well, well, this was actually an unexpected surprise, the youkomon that looked like a foul foe that lusted only for destruction was actually understanding and gave an explanation about what happened there. The palmon was still tense and afraid despite all the explanation, but decided to try to believe the purple large vulpine digimon, she was quite gullible and naive, enough to even believe that adult humans ate digimon XD

"A-are you a good digimon? Lately a lot of bad digimon appeared here, I think one of them even destroyed the shrine and now more humans appear in the forest thanks to that"

By "a lot" she meant only dorumon and dracmon, she was quite prone to exaggerate, and there was also that unfortunate incident in the shrine some weeks or maybe a month ago. She was peacefully sleeping next to her little flower garden when lots of noises interrupted the calmness of the nighttime forest and the next day many humans appeared in both the forest and the shrine and since then it become harder to get near the shrine area, her friends Shana and Hanako told her to never get near adult humans and non tamer humans, and almost everybody who came to the forest was a digimon-less adult.

"I live here, this is my home since I ran away from the house of my friend some time ago ... I forgot how much"

She relaxed a bit more after the youkomon showed interest in helping her and removed her roots from the soil, she looked scary but she seemed to be a nice digimon, so she felt she could talk with her. She was taught not to judge a book by its cover, but sometimes it was hard to do it when the cover was so ugly and looked like one of the bad guys.

[Observer]

A question came from the somewhat frightened flower digimon. Was she good or evil. Boy, this was a tricky one. Renee did not know how to honestly answer this question. Could an assassin ever be considered good? She didn't know the answer, but sure as hell knew that stopping doing it doesn't automatically render you good. No, the fox was neither for now, leaning to both sides from time to time, depending on the situation.

- I am trying to be good to people, let's leave it at that... - the fox replied as she continued listening to what she had to say. The palmon was talking about bad digimon that emerged here - this was not a surprise really, they were appearing everywhere, and it was Renee's job to ... kill them. All of them. Good or bad, young or old. Kill every one of them, so that it is not have to be done again. Not too long ago the fox had no qualms with following the motto. But now...

- I know what happened at the Meiji Shrine. That digimon who did it is dead. - she said reassuringly. Of course she would knew what happened here, the ugly burn on her face served as a nifty reminder of that, making the memory of the event long-lasting. Plus, the youkomon did not want to forget the lesson she learned that day, being a turning point in her life and all.

- You lived with a human? Why did you run away? Did they maltreat you? - the youkomon asked with worry. She knew a few cases when tamers were treating their digimon like garbage, and in those cases the digimon were too weak or too devoted to leave. Maybe this was the case with the palmon, maybe she was fed up with it and left? Normally, again, Renee wouldn't care. But since becoming youkomon ... she suddenly started. Why?

- Tell me child, can you do me a favor? Can you find me a piece of cloth or anything to double as an eye-patch? My own was lost since I evolved several days ago, and my paws are not hands anymore, I cannot do it myself... - she asked, seeing how terrified the palmon was from looking at her. The scar was used as a nifty psychological weapon, bringing dread into weaker enemy's hearts, but outside the battle - it was nothing but hindrance...

[Mirei]

"Umm ... a bad digimon would hurt me but you apologized, I believe you!"

Trying to be good? That was some weird for the palmon who in her childish mind thought that people were either good or bad, nothing in the middle, but as the youkomon apologized and sounded sincere, she believed her despite how evil was her appearance. Ahh ... such was the beauty of still being a naive child unaware of the cruel world outside, she was still brimming with the innocence of a kid who has yet to discover how much the adult world is unforgiving to those full with idealism and unrealistic expectations.

"Aww ... why can't all digimon and humans be friends? It would be nice if everybody reunited to play, sing and have fun around the flowers. I used to do that with my friends, but my human friend Shana didn't like when I played with her sister and they talked bad about each other; I don't like it when people fights so I left and I now live here, they sometimes visits me along my digimon friends aruraumon and lalamon and we play together like before. Unlike their human partners, arurau-chan and lala-chan gets along well and they play together."

Despite how much time passed since she left the house of the Hitoehi sisters, she still didn't understand why the sisters fought for her. She only wanted to be friends with everybody, but Shana for some reason thought Hanako wanted to steal the palmon's friendship from her or something like that. That was too hard to process for the palmon and the only thing she knew was that they were fighting because she was there, so she left.

After hearing about the request of the youkomon, she looked around, picked a relatively big leaf large enough to cover an eye and removed some tree sap from a bottle she had inside her shoulder bag, it was still relatively fresh and sticky enough to serve as a natural glue to keep the large leaf in place.

"Here, you can cover your eye with the leaf and glue it around the eye with this tree sap"

[Observer]

- Digimon often harm humans. And humans avenge themselves and harm digimon in turn. That is why they can't be friends. You made a right decision to stay away from them, sooner or later, it would have lead to trouble... - the youkomon explained. She knew better - after all, she was on human side in this conflict. But since she was a digimon, same dangers were posed to her as well. She could only warn of danger, for all the good it would do. For sake of both digimon and humans.

Usually she would not talk to strangers like that, being more straight-forward, but that was only for grown digimon, who had common sense, and could defend themselves. For such a child, and she considered the palmon a child, she tried to be softer. Often she succeeded. She noticed the floral digimon complied with her little request and brought around a rather large leaf. The youkomon would have welcomed a normal eye-patch, but for a makeshift one the leaf would do too.

- You said there were many bad digimon around. Have you seen any recently? I'd better ... deal with them, before they harm someone... - the youkomon asked, lowering her head, so that the palmon could place the leaf on the charred half of her face. She decided to avoid the word "kill" this time, figuring it is not good to mention it in front of such an ... innocent little critter...

[Mirei]

"Ohh ... that's sad .."

The palmon looked down at the soil and wondered why would they hurt each other. It simply didn't make sense because being friend made everybody happy and not being friend caused sadness. The Hitoehi sisters looked sad because they couldn't be friends and that made her a bit sad as well because when they weren't with her at the same time, they were the best friends the plant digimon could ever hope to have.

The older digimon asked her about the bad digimon she mentioned and the palmon obeyed her, after all she was a grown up, at least from her point of view, and she was taught that kids always had to obey their seniors.

"There is this baaad dorumon that lives with a weird human girl in another part of the forest, he was very mean and attacked a dracmon that visited the forest and said bad things like digimon that allied with humans were evil and had to disappear. He also didn't respect nature and was shooting metal balls everywhere, he could've hurt some trees that way! .... and the dracmon was mean too, I heard him telling to a human boy to become allies and hurt other digimons ... and he cut a poor tree!"

As usual, she was exaggerating a little, but what kid didn't do it sometimes? Those two wanted to do bad things and were hurting the trees and plants of the forest, and they didn't even apologize! At least the youkomon apologized and said that she was good, but those two didn't and even looked like they were happy doing bad things

[Observer]

Renee listened very attentively to what the small plant digimon said. The child did not understand it, but she was in fact very lucky to escape with her life. Tamers and their digimon often hunted down wild ones, just like Renee herself did when she was with Larry. And while she saw it as a good thing - those kids actually helped the resistance, she would not want to see the palmon suffer such a fate. She should warn her of the dangers tamers posed.

- Child, you should be wary of humans that are paired with digimon even more than just of simple humans. While sometimes they are good people, there is a possibility they could be out here ... hunting. For lone digimon, and sometimes even for paired ones. Like that dracmon you heard, they would be wandering around, destroy any digimon they find, and absorb the data to become stronger. You do not want to suffer the same fate, do you? - there, that should have done enough to keep the digimon away from trouble - she had seen a few times how benevolent digimon suffered because of their gullibility. A lesson her friend Wizardmon failed to learn...

So... there was a tamer and a human-hater digimon out here in the woods. This was important information, but she needed to know more. Who were they? Why did they live here? What were they up to? Youkomon thought she should inform her own tamer on this one, when he will contact her again. And in the meanwhile, she should look after the forest, and all those defenseless digimon she managed to find...

- Maybe you would be safer in that shelter I mentioned. There are many digimon like you there, stranded in this world with no way out. You could make new friends there. Nobody will harm you. I can show you the way, if you like... And ... could you place that leaf over my scar? - the palmon seemed to forget she was holding that leaf in her hands. Youkomon inclined her own head even lower, so that the small digimon could have a better look and place it correctly.

[Mirei]

"B-but my human and digimon friends were so good with me ... they even ate cake with me and it was fun when we were together, and there were other humans with digimon that weren't bad ... was I only lucky those times?"

She always blamed for their bad-ness the digimons who were with the humans, but until now she never thought that bad digimons could had bad humans as partners as well. The plant digimon believed that non adult humans were all nice and good while only the "evolved" adult ones were dangerous, what youkomon said completely turned upside down her beliefs and now she wasn't sure about what to believe anymore. Said youkomon also offered her to move to a safer place, but then she would be abandoning some things precious to her

"I don't know ... my friends will think I disappeared and the flowers in my little garden will be alone without me and ..."

Only after the large vixen mentioned again the leaf she was supposed to use as an eyepatch the palmon realized that she was so shocked for the eye-opening talk that completely forgot to use them. She immediately went near the youkomon and put the leaf on the fox's scarred eye, applying some tree sap to keep it immobile. Looking closely the youkomon didn't look as scary as before, in fact it was almost like ... she were somebody to trust and believe, her fur was warm and one could simply fall asleep using the mystic beast as a pillow.

"You are so nice and warm ... evolving is scary, but if I evolve I want to be a nice grown up like you. My nanny Rosemon used to say that evolving caused digimon to change a bit their personality and I was scared I would become a bad and mean adult, but if somebody who looks scary like you and my friend aruraumon when she evolves into woodmon can still be nice, gentle and warm digimon, maybe when I grow up I will still be a good digimon no matter how much I change"

Nanny Rosemon ... she always taught her many things and maybe spoiled her a little. The palmon wondered what happened to everybody else in the institute and hoped that she didn't change very much when the time to become an adult arrives, maybe she would become a beautiful and nice adult like the youkomon and rosemon and that was a bit reassuring.