Aftermath... and hangover [Ob/Slate]

[observer]

The room was dark. Completely dark. No sun, no sound, no light. Only enveloping darkness anywhere one could set a gaze to. It was quiet too... Very quiet. As if sound did not exist here... But wait, no. That was a lie. There were sounds, if you tune enough to hear them. There they were. Drop... Drop... Drop... Splash, splash... Splash again. There was water somewhere. But that was it. Nothing more. One should be grateful there were these droplets, they gave something to concentrate on... Like counting them... One... two ... three...

Suddenly, a screech of a metal door opening was heard... And blinding light went inside. About time too, because after a while this sound of dropping water will drill a hole through your head, will drive you insane. That ... constant ... poking... and poking ... and poking, ARGH! Once you stay here for long enough, it becomes a torture... And ... time seems to flow slower in such a confined space anyway...

- Get up, you vermin! Someone wants to take a look at you. - a somewhat harsh and violent voice was heard as a dark, and a human silhouette appeared in the bright doorway...

- Where are you ... leading me... - the fox mumbled in her sleep, and then her head twisted, as if being punched. The fox was still out cold from that blow delivered to her ... around 10 hours ago by strikedramon. Well, no, that wasn't true. She was out cold, but that unconscious state at some point turned into a blatant nap. They did not move anywhere since - the two others were nice enough not to abandon her in such a helpless state - one could only imagine what could be done to her if someone else would find her, someone with no decency not to exploit the fox's vulnerability, while she was dreaming... Except that dreams she was having were not very good ones... She twitched and struggled and talked and sometimes even screamed in her sleep, seeing images from her past she'd rather forget...

A gray corridor. Lifeless, artificial light above her head. And doors, to the left, to the right. Metal doors. With numbers on them. Cells, those were. Her hands locked behind her back. Staring to the floor. Someone behind her, pushing something cold and metallic into her back. A barrel of a gun. Not that she would try something anyway. Her will was broken ... a long time ago. It is amazing what days of isolation can do to a person. Another door opened, and she was presented before a group of people... But she couldn't see more. Faces were blurry, smudged... One of them she noticed though. Tall one. Black coat... Only the upper side of his face was smudged, the lower one bearing a sinister smirk... In his hand there was a black digivice...

And then there was pain...

The fox twitched in her sleep once more, back arching as she rolled from her back on her stomach. Whatever she saw next was certainly a bad, very bad dream. She had such often, when back at Babamon's place, and the old lady got used to those. But her new companions? Probably not so much. And... since those were dreams, it meant she was about to wake up - dreams are usually seen before awakening...

- Gah! - she gasped rather loudly, her eyes opening widely. Maybe it was that bump she received from the strikedramon? Maybe, maybe not. At any rate... she was awakened, and found herself staring at the ground she was facing...

[yagami]

As Monodramon and Renamon continued to sleep, laying down in the sand several feet away from the only human out of the group, Ryusuke himself remained awake. Sitting up in the packed sand and still wearing the red coat he had been earlier, this time welcoming the extra warmth it provided in the cold desert night, Ryusuke closely observed his hand in the darkness, having removed the white glove from the fake limb to make sure it handn't been damaged from the earlier fight. Legs crossed in front of him and his arm resting on it palm upwards, Ryusuke felt a small twinge as he closed his hand, metal fingers curling inwards in a much smoother motion than they had an hour ago and with much more relative ease. The stabbing pain that he'd felt in his shoulder had all but disappeared as well, save for the slight aching throb whenever he gingerly began attempting to raise his right arm. It hadn't started leaking any fluid or blood since he'd first checked it, but the fear that came with the initial realization that something was incredibly wrong with the prosthetic hadn't disappeared - rather, it had merely faded much as the pain had, instead shrinking into a small, nagging worry towards the back of his mind when he wasn't focused on it.

Even under normal cicumstances it would have been a major setback, but given where he was it would be foolish to take any more risks when it came to his physical well being - he had no way to repair his arm or leg should they break, and as it was the first thing he'd need to do would be to pay a visit to the surgeon who'd done the initial work of bonding the prosthetic to his shoulder when or if he got back home. In the meantime, the best he could do was avoid putting any more strain on the arm than necessary and, while it pained him to think of it, rely on Monodramon if they ran into conflict - while he still didn't understand where the dragon's reasonless devotion to him came from, he'd had proven himself genuine in his desire to protect Ryusuke from harm, and the human no longer doubted at least that much about his partner, surprising himself again by the fact that he no longer felt anger or bitterness towards the word.

Ryusuke's mind suddenly snapped into focus as Renamon suddenly sat up, though, the human himself untucking his legs and jumping to his feet just as fast, left arm coming up in a tentative guard as his right arm continued to hang limply at his side, a deliberate action on Ryusuke's part. He had no idea what had gotten into her before, but as she had said when they first met, it never paid to be too careful - problem was that if she decided she wanted payback for before, there was astonishingly little Ryusuke could do to defend himself in his current state. Monodramon, however, woke at the exact same instand she did, likewise jumping to his feet as well and immediately taking a handful of steps to place himself in front of Ryusuke and between Renamon and his partner. After a few moments of silence and relative stillness, Ryusuke finally spoke.

"..... we're sorry about before, but you didn't leave us much choice in the matter. That being said, how's your head? You took a rather nasty hit."

[observer]

... sorry about before... didn't leave us much choice ... nasty hit...

The words said to her barely registered in her head, as her brain was still in the process of awakening. And said process was going rather slowly. First thing she felt was dull pain both inside her head, and in the forehead, as if she were on an all-night drinking binge, and now suffered the aftereffects of drinking too much. Except that it was not the case at all...

Vision still blurry, she put hear hand on the forehead, only to feel a nasty surge of pain from the touch. There was a bruise, a rather big one too, across it - being visible even from under the fur, and a swelling. Still, while unpleasant, it wasn't something she couldn't take, and the pain from it she soon got used to. The fox turned her head, focusing on the two for a little while. Her gaze was not that one of hate and anger from before... No. It was her average one - eyes a bit widened, confused, a hint of fear present as always. Yes, she was back... For now.

Questions were posed to the renamon, however, and she needed to answer them. She was a good digimon, she always answered all asked of her ... if she could. Memories... yes, she needed to remember what exactly happened to answer. And, to great relief, she did remember... most of it. Remembered that she met a digimon named Modoki, a human named Valus, that human held the digimon by force... and then... it went blank again... To much disappointment... And fear. She just started accumulating memories, and losing any was great distress to her. But luckily her friends would tell her, won't they?

- I ... uh... head hurts... - she answered honestly, rubbing her temples with fingers, moving on to the forehead. She took a bump on the head? Did she fall? Or something happened to her? She looked at Monodramon again, as he stood between her and the human, looking rather fight-ready, and winced away from him, crawling back a bit. She did not like violent-looking people... Looking Ryusuke in the eyes, she asked innocently:

- And ... sorry ... what for? What ... happened? Did I do ... bad?

[yagami]

Arm lowering somewhat in response to Renamon's drastic change in demeanor from before, Ryusuke simply stared at the larger digimon with a dumbfounded expression. She wasn't able to remember anything from before? Not the attempt she'd made on Valus' life, the ensuing fight and escape of said man, nor the fact that she'd nearly torn the base of his prosthetic from the flesh it had bonded to at his shoulder? She didn't remember any of that, not even the headbutt that Monodramon had given her when he'd still been Strikedramon? If she didn't remember it she certainly felt it, but this opened the door to way more questions than Ryusuke, let alone Renamon, was prepared to deal with right now. As he continued to simply stand in place, unsure of how to deal with the new development, Monodramon's stance began to relax, although he didn't lower it as Ryusuke had, instead simply glancing back over his shoulder at Ryusuke before looking back over at Renamon again.

"Are we not fighting then? If that's the case, I'm going back to sleep." Monodramon asked after several moments, finally lowering his owns arms and walking several feet away from the human to curl up in the sand again at the further sign of no impending fight, leaving Ryusuke to simply continue staring is shocked confusion at Renamon.

".......... you...... don't remember....? You don't remember any of what happened a few hours ago, before you fell unconscious?" Ryusuke asked, finally finding his voice after another several moments of awkward silence. On the one hand, Renamon thankfuly seemed to be back to what she'd been like upon meeting him, a big step in the right direction as far as he was concerned. The thing that disturbed him, though, was the complete unawareness that she'd shown regarding earlier events - it almost reminded him of a certain disorder he'd heard about a number of years back, disassociative personality disorder, or in other words, a split personality, but that still didn't make much sense. People afflicted with that were still able to recall events from when the second personality was in control, and on top of that it was something that usually happened at random, and that had not been he case earlier. Renamon had been triggered by somethign that Valus had said, and that was even more disturbing given the possible implications.

[observer]

Renee kept staring at the ground blankly, as the boy asked his questions. She was ... frightened somewhat. And helpless because she couldn't remember. And she did not know why... This was scary... And it seemed to dazzle even those who questioned her. She grabbed her head with her hands, massaging the temples in another futile attempt to remember...

- I ... I remember... things... - she said, not facing the human or his digimon again. - I ... remember ... this boy... Bad boy... Nasty mean... evil. Valus... Modoki... She was enslaved ... I was told... I got angry... And that's all... What ... did I do? - she asked again, finally turning her head to them. Her gaze became ... focused, observant. She scanned through both human and digimon, looking for ... damage. She feared she did something bad, and if she did ... there would be some harm, would it?

Monodramon was first. That boisterous thing looked completely unharmed. Not that she worried about him much - he stayed away from her, he liked fighting, so if she hurt him he'd be okay. Then her gaze turned to the human... She may not have been a fighter in this form, but some skills came through to both, and one of them was the ability to spot ... pain. It was ... almost unnoticeable, uncontrollable twitch his face had whenever that arm moved even slightly upwards...

The renamon ... her face showed regret. She, she didn't mean to hurt anybody! She hated any kind of harm or fighting, especially of those she considered friends. But yet ... where did this hurting come from? Was it she? Or was it the evil human? She didn't know, but a nagging feeling and the way these two were acting when she woke up were giving some mean hints. The fox crawled closer to the boy, her hand reaching slightly for his artificial shoulder.

- I ... sorry... much. No hate ... no malice... Do not know... Please ... forgiveness... - she said, no, she implored. Looking down and away, the fox muttered: - I ... hurt you... Did .. what ... did I? Tell ... everything...

[yagami]

Simply remaining in place and making no movements beyond lowering his one raised arm to hang by his side in a mirror image of his limp prosthetic, Ryusuke watched as Renamon began massaging her temples, struggling to remember what had happened. Ryusuke, for his part, was struggling to understand what was currently going on in the digimon's head. There were still the previous theories that had entered his mind to consider, along with the fact that he'd immediately recognized the scars on her body to be the marks of rather brutal torture, but even then not everything added up. He didn't know who had done that to her, when, why or where. He had no idea what could act as a trigger beyond what had happened hours earlier, and couldn't even begin to formulate how such an outburst could be prevented, if it indeed was even preventable, and there were dozens of other factors and questions to be considered. To put it rather blunty, Ryusuke simply did not have enough information to even begin formulating a concrete idea of what had happened, let alone a way to act upon said idea. It wasn't until Renamon began moving towards Ryusuke that he instinctively acted, his golden eyes snapping back into focus and moving to stand straighter, attempting to raise his right arm without thinking about it - a stupid action, and one that he had taken so for granted even after losing his original right arm that he had completely forgot he'd injured the base of the prosthetic at the very least, if not having also inflicted serious damage to the arm itself. Wincing from the movement as another rather powerful lance of pain ran through his body as if he'd received a powerful electric shock to his shoulder, Ryusuke staggered for a moment, resisting the urge to grab his shoulder again. Monodramon, sensing something was wrong, quickly looked up and began climbing to his feet as he misinterpreted the situation.

"I'm fine." Ryusuke said after a moment as he saw Monodramon beginning to advance towards Renamon, wanting to avoid a continuation of the earlier fight. Monodramon, giving Ryusuke a look that clearly said the little dragon didn't believe him, focused his stare on Renamon, daring her to take another step forwards. As she asked them to explain what had happened, Ryusuke more or less bit his tongue - the last thing he needed was this consciousness to be aware of the incident if it was indeed a personality disorder.

"You tried to pull him off of you when he stopped you from hurting that other human, and you almost took his arm off while doing it." Monodramon said, completely blunt as he continued to stare at Renamon, with Ryusuke shooting Monodramon a glare in return. This was exactly what he did not need right now - why was it that the dragon was only helpful when it suited him? If they were partners as he so claimed, he was doing a shoddy job of it and being rather selective of what he did and didn't want out of the deal.

[observer]

...

To say Renee was shocked of what Monodramon said was to say nothing. Sher eyes fixated on him when he spoke, widened in pure terror of realization and acknowledgement of what she had done. She took it as absolute truth, because ... well, it really was so. But she still didn't understand... How? How could she have done it? She was a coward, a poor fighter... Very poor... What happened?

Slowly, she looked away from the boy and from the dinosaur, not bearing to look in their eyes. She was ashamed. Of herself, much. She wanted to help the boy out of digital world, not ... not harm him and tear his arm off! She never meant to! - How ... did I? What ... did I do? Why?[/color] - she asked herself and yet she didn't understand. She remembered the other human making her angry, but ... that was other human! Not this one!

- I ... couldn't... Bad fighter... Afraid... Hate fight... hate harm... Much... - she said, but those words sounded like excuses more than anything. They didn't have any reason to tell her wrong, right? Hell, she never even suspected them to... She looked at Monodramon again, only to turn away. He despised her, or so she thought. Still...

She stood up from the ground, towering over the midget digimon and the sitting human. She wasn't doing any intimidating though, instead, she even took a few steps away from them, before turning her head a bit to look at them, before saying:

- Apologize... I do... profusely. No bad... no ill intent... remember not... Only help... I wished... No idea... what happened. I ... I go away now... Danger ... am... if.