Digital Inference 8

Chapter 8: Siege
<<<Lisa Wilbourn>>>

“This… doesn’t seem right…” Now, Lisa knew better than to judge a digimon by their appearance, but… it really didn’t seem right.

Sure from her understanding the small town wasn’t exactly filled with ‘high level’ combatants, maybe a few Champions while most of the population were Rookies. But seeing them under siege by dozens of Hagurumon, Solarmon, and Toy Agumon (all according to her Digivice) seemed… ridiculous.

Though maybe that’s because of Toy Agumon being made of what might’ve been knock-off legos.

“I feel like we stepped into a Saturday morning cartoon…” Brian admitted as he scratched his cheek, “But… that’s a lotta bodies between us and the town…”

“We could beat them up?” Vixi offered, “Plenty of data, plenty of bits.”

“The Toy Agumon are laughing,” Lisa noted, frowning, “The other two aren’t…” Really, the Toys were seemingly playing rather than attacking while the others were near mindless.

{Hagurumon and Solarmon are being puppeted. Toy Agumon saw this attack and thought they were playing and decided to join in on the fun.} Well that wasn’t existent terrifying in the slightest, but she figured she should share it with their partners before they threw themselves into the fray.

“The Hagurumon and Solarmon are being controlled,” Lisa said, “And Toy Agumon saw this and thought they were playing and decided to join.”

“Seriously?” Brian asked looking at her before returning to the siege, “This is some… fucking Heartbreaker shit or something…”

“I don’t see any Dark Gears,” Blanc said with a frown, “But they could be installed in their heads too.”

“Or it could be something new…” Vixi commented, scratching her chin, “There’s always something surprising to find in the Digital world after all.”

Brian coughed, “And that means?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” Blanc replied, “We beat them up and hope it helps.”

“Heh, percussive maintenance,” Lisa commented with a smile.

“You get it!” Vixi replied, “Of course, there are enough of them that we might need help from the Toy Agumon too… which you can get! You seem all… talky, so why don’t you negotiate?”

Lisa rolled her eyes, “Fine… and if the Toy Augmons decide to fight you don’t be too rough with them unless you have no choice,” She said, “Now, how do I get them to actually listen to me?”

“Words?” Blanc suggested before jumping into the town and, alongside Vixi, attacking outlying stragglers.

“Helpful,” Lisa groaned, “Brian… can you make sure they don’t get in too deep? I trust you more than them.”

“Are you… sure you don’t want backup?” He replied, concerned, “In case they attack you?”

Giving him a flat look, she said, “Not sure you’d help much in that case, they breathe fire and… neither of us can really deal with that.” Even if that fire looked like toy flames, they were clearly dangerous enough to damage the landscape a bit.

Brian didn’t look happy, but also knew that Lisa generally had a plan (which she really didn’t) so he agreed. Honestly while Lisa appreciated the trust, it didn’t change the fact that her ‘plan’ amounted to approaching a Toy Agumon that was resting before returning to ‘playing’ and hoping for the best.

“Okay well if the Toys back off, I succeeded. Or if you hear me screaming, then get ready for a bigger fight.” Lisa said as she started looking for an isolated Toy Agumon.

It wasn’t too hard to find one, he was playing in a, so far undamaged, playground for children.

Perhaps he was a child, Digimon maturation seemed very weird, or maybe it was an influence from being a Toy. Regardless Lisa carefully approached the digimon, “Hey, having fun?” She asked for the lack of anything better to say.

She was very much flying blind, and she did not enjoy the experience.

“Yup!” He replied, swinging on a swingset, “Who are you?”

“Lisa, a Digidestined,” She said, “Mind if I join you?”

“Nope!” He replied, “Why is everyone else screaming? Did we do something wrong?”

Lisa smiled as she took a seat beside him on another swing, “It’s because while you and the other Toy Agumon are playing? The Solarmon and Hagurumon aren’t. They’re being controlled and made to attack. So, from the town’s perspective, this isn’t fun.”

The toy digimon stopped swinging, “W-what do you mean? They said that the town was ready for a fun battle!”

“I have a special power that lets me figure out stuff.” She poked her power {Enjoys playing. Enjoys kick ball and wrestling best. Wants to grow up and become Toy Metalgraymon.) “Like how you especially enjoy kickball and wrestling. Or how you want to be big and strong like Toy Metalgraymon,” Lisa said with a smile.

“T-Thanks no good! We’re supposed to be playing!” The Toy cried out clearly upset. “And I wanna be a ShineGreymon! But that’s ok, a lot of people think that exists too!”

“It’s okay, my partner and my friend’s partner are going to fight the other digimon,” Lisa said, “And if you and your friends help, you can apologize and help the town fix everything. And maybe some of them will want to have a fun fight with you all. And I’m still new to the Digital World, so I didn’t know about ShineGreymon.”

“He’s awesome!” The toy said, “He’s Queen Beemon’s Right Hand!” He looked like he was about to start gushing about the digimon.

“Let’s tell the other Toy Agumon first, then you can tell me all about him, ok?” Lisa offered, “Then I bet you can play with the people in the town later as much as you want, after things get fixed, ok?”

“Okay! You’re nice for a Hoomon.” Lisa just smiled as he got up and started running, “Hey, you guys!”

“... That is adorable…” Lisa couldn’t help but say, “Well might as well wait until everything settles…”

Then the battle arrived in the playground, Blanc summoning a barrier as attacks rained down on her, thrown gears exploding against it and the ground around her. Vixi took the gear digimon from behind, slamming her palm through the back of its head and tearing something out of it.

Something that exploded after she tossed it to the ground.

“Goddamnit, me and my big mouth…” She grumbled.

{Brainwashing device removed. Solarmon is now friendly.}

Vixi dropped, panting; one hand on her knee and the other on the ground. “I think I have… one or two left in me…” She said, hat and paws slightly singed. “Have you… convinced the Toy Agumon, Lisa?”

Blanc didn’t look much better than Vixi did, her habit and robes scorched and torn in spots as she leaned on her trident for support.

“Yeah, the one I talked with just ran off to talk to the others,” Lisa said, “And I don’t want to be… racist or anything but how do you tell digimon apart?” Though part of her knew it was stupid asking digimon that question as it was something they just grew up doing.

“We look at their data,” Blanc replied, “Each digimon has a unique hash string, uh… your digivice should be able to show you?”

Well… that could be more convenient, but at least she didn’t seem offended by it. Maybe she could get some glasses to show it later…

“The gear digimon are being run off now,” Brian said, having needed to jog over, “There are too few of them to handle the bigger guys that live in the town now.”

“That’s good,” Lisa said, “Well at least this time, I didn’t just stand and let you do all the work right, Vixi?”

“What are you talking about?” Vixi demanded, “You never do that! Without you, I wouldn’t have digivolved and I would never have been able to fight so many fellow rookies in one go! I draw strength from our bond!”

“It’s a human thing,” Brian said, patting her shoulder, “Sometimes we just feel like we should’ve done more.” 

Lisa just blushed at Vixi’s words and honestly wasn’t sure what to say in response. Keeping a tight leash on her power so it didn’t psycho-analyse her. Again.

Vixi hugged her, “You should never feel useless. You’re way more important than I am. What do I do? Punch things? You do all the hard stuff.”

Lisa blushed even more.

“Annnnd kiss!~” Blanc exclaimed mischievously.

“Mmm, maybe later!” Vixi replied, grinning wide, “For now, how many bits and how much data did we get?”

“Dark Digivolution Data Total: 25%. Total Bits: 1240.” Lisa’s digivice helpfully provided. Brian had gotten another 620 bits from Blanc.

As Vixi and Blanc talked about what they got from the big fight, Brian had the unexpected pleasure of watching Lisa go beet red.

“Say, how about we rest here?” Brian suggested, “Help the town out and hopefully get some more information?”

“We heal up first,” Lisa said, standing up, “See if they’re willing to give us a discount for their clinic or something.” She didn’t like how beat up Vixi and Blanc looked, “Then… yeah, probably a good idea.”

“Plus places like this always have errands or small jobs.” Blanc commented, “And there is never a shortage of jobs dealing with aggressive digimon.”

“With how fight-happy most seem, you’d think they’d never have jobs like that,” Brian commented.

“You’d think so, but honestly some digimon don’t really want to fight,” Vixi explained, “Most just do it to get to Rookie level, and then just focus on living. And sometimes there are oddballs… I heard there’s a Rookie that can go claw to claw with a Champion. For some reason, he can’t digivolve beyond Rookie but he doesn’t have that… cap on his strength. It’s really weird.”

“Right, right…” Lisa sighed, getting out of her seat and slowly walking into the town after the violence seemed to have stopped, “Now… if I were a hospital, what would I look like?”

“A big red cross?” Blanc suggested, “That’s normal in the human world, right?”

“Yeah, but I had no idea if that would be true here,” Lisa said, “I’m trying really hard not to assume things.”

“That’s because you’re smart,” Vixi said with a grin, hugging her, {Was entirely serious about kissing you.} and making her blush harder as she did. “Let’s go!”

She had to admit, she was impressed by how energetic even hurt digimon could be.

They did eventually find a building with a red cross, even if it was slightly on fire (the cross was, specifically, the rest of the building was somehow untouched).

“I want to be concerned but… no one's panicking or screaming so I’ll just… assume this is normal?” Lisa said, looking at the oddity before her.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Blanc asked, “It was hit by a weak fire attack, so obviously only part of it would catch fire. They’ll put it out when the bigger messes are dealt with.”

“... this really is just a video game,” Brian noted, “Regent would love this stuff.”

Lisa couldn’t disagree, so she didn’t and instead just… walked in, grimacing at how busy it was. “One moment!” A small bee-like digimon called out, incredibly fluffy if… pointy in places. “If you have a critical case, go to the back for emergency healing!”

Lisa just nodded before looking at Vixi and Blanc, “You two think you need some emergency attention?” She asked, they were pretty beat up but they didn’t look like they were in critical condition.

“Oh!” The bee said, looking up and seeing them, “It’s our saviours! Hold on a moment, I have something for you!” On its four wings, it flew into a back room and, before Lisa had time to say anything, flew back; two disk cartridges in its claws. “Heal disks! They’ll bring Renamon and Sistermon Blanc up to full in no time! They’re a bit expensive, so we can’t just use them on everyone, but for two digimon that put themselves in danger for us…”

“Oh, um… thanks. But don’t you need these?” Honestly her inner opportunist died a little, but she told Vixi she was going to try and be better.

“No one was hurt so badly that these would help but not so badly they wouldn’t help enough,” They replied, “I’m FanBeemon! I know I’m a little far away from the hive, but I wanted to help people and QueenBeemon allowed it! My technical expertise lets me heal the Clockmon here and my medical expertise lets me heal everyone else!”

Lisa could even recognize some of the ‘everyone else,’ a few Wormmon and a few dinosaur digimon were in the clinic even as she spoke with the bee, who Taylor would have undoubtedly loved.

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Lisa said, “You need any help around here?”

“Well…” FanBeemon started, “If you’re offering, I do need to deliver something to the Hive if you’re going by there. I’d do it myself, but with all of the injuries…”

“Well, it depends on how soon.” Lisa said, “We were hoping to get some rest, and yeah we were heading that way… just trying to figure out how to get in. The Hive Queen isn’t very welcoming to strangers, I heard.”

“As soon as possible!” FanBeemon replied, “As long as you’re holding the package, you’ll be let inside! It’s very important, rare machine parts to make the hive better!”

“Well, okay. We’ll let our partners heal and rest a bit before heading to the Hive,” Lisa said, though a part of her felt it was a bit too convenient.

“You might have people try to rob you for them, they can be used to upgrade some digimon,” FanBeemon said, making Lisa sigh internally, “I wouldn’t have to worry about them because I can fly, but you… can’t.”

“In the worst case,” Vixi started, “we can pick you two up and run. It wouldn’t be dignified, but if the force arrayed against us is too strong then discretion becomes the better part of valor.”

“Don’t lie, you’re looking forward to running while carrying Lisa!~” Blanc quipped.

“Two things can be true at the same time,” Vixi replied, lifting her chin up smugly, “You are just a little gremlin.”

“Well, only sometimes. You two are just too obvious, get a room already!” Blanc said with a huff.

Lisa felt a little part of herself die out of sheer mortification, and the faint amused grin on Brian’s face certainly didn’t help.

“Maybe we will!” Vixi replied, her grin widening, “Sir FanBeemon, how much is a room at the Inn?”

“I’m sure you lot can get a discount, maybe four hundred bits,” Fanbeemon said, “Though it’s nice to see partners getting closer,” The digimon teased.

Lisa wasn’t sure how red her face had become as she stiffly walked out of the building, ignoring the giggles behind her (and how her partner was able to heal just by absorbing the Heal Disk), and searched for the inn.

Which wasn’t very hard since it had a giant sign that said ‘INN’ hanging off it.

“I thought you were Ace, Lisa?” A very amused Brian asked, “Something about TMI?”

“I thought I was too!” She squeaked back, “But my power has been really, really weird since getting here and hasn’t even been giving me a headache, and it’s been way easier to control and it hasn’t been giving me TMI stuff, probably because digimon are made out of fucking data and there’s nothing to TMI about.”

She was only slightly freaked out, but mostly embarrassed.

Getting a room was easy, and they were given a discount, but as they got into their beds… Vixi just hugged her from behind. “You ok, Lisa? The teasing wasn’t too much, was it?” She was… concerned, if the tone of her voice said anything about it. “You’re my friend, if I or anyone else ever goes too far, you just need to say something, ok?”

{Is concerned. Wants to kiss you. Uses blueberry shampoo. Recently ate a giant cherry.}

“It’s okay Vixi, I just… ever since I got my power the thought of being intimate was ruined,” Lisa said, “If anything, I never had any opinions about it anyway, suddenly having a power that tells me every little detail? Didn’t wash his hands, forgot to brush his teeth, and countless other gross things… it just made it really hard to even consider intimacy; let alone dating.” She explained, “And well… honestly waking up with you using me as a body pillow… well it was the first time I… found someone that didn’t gross me out. I don’t know if it’s just my power getting better or a digimon thing but… well… yeah…” She mumbled awkwardly.

Vixi hugged her tighter, “Then I won’t kiss you. Yet. Not until you understand what’s going on, ok?”

“Thank you…” Lisa said quietly, “But you are… really pretty…” She admitted shyly, “God, it’s like I’m a bashful little girl again… so embarrassing…”

Vixi giggled, “I’m a fox, of course I’m pretty. Don’t worry about anything, I’ve got you.”

“Oh hush, let’s just get some sleep…” Lisa said with a blush.

Vixi giggled again and proceeded to use Lisa as a bodypillow once more… and Lisa could admit… she didn’t hate it.