All It Takes Is a Spark [Bero]

The air was seeped in red. With Terminus City’s lack of other colours to counteract the Virus enhancing weather phenomenon, the entire city got a almost horror-esque red glow to it. Virus digimon seemed ecstatic at the weather, energetic. Indeed, it served to boost all their best and worst traits. Life went on in Terminus, though. Despite the red hue the entire location had acquired, the same digimon walked outside and went about their daily business as any other day.

Brawling in Terminus wasn’t the easiest thing to do, law-abiding digis left and right which were going to be your trouble or get you into trouble. Luckily for Bero, the weather was on his side. Many Virus digimon were at their worst behaviour right now, Bero himself included. His black fur, grey scales all lit up very sinisterly in the slight red light that shone from above. Viciousness was on his mind. If he had his way, he’d already have stains of battle plastered all over him.

However, there was none of that quite yet. Bero was still wandering through the various streets, looking for a worthy foe to goad into joining him into an unsupervised alleyway. However, his combat streak had not been unheard of, as even some other virus rookie digimon gave him a berth, their worst behaviour not bad enough to be as dumb as to get in unnecessary fights.

Bero had not expected straightforward combat to come easy. It was going to be a snowball effect. Get into one little scrap, get hurt, and then many opportunistic Viruses hiding in the shadow would give the fun for the rest of the day. He wandered the streets looking for that first fight, his mouth in a calm smile and his wicked eyes scanning his surroundings for the chance at combat.

As Bero waited, looking at his surroundings, patient yet insurmountably anxious to get into a fight, he spotted the one thing that would always get his blood boiling. Humans. A new face at that, as far as Bero was concerned. It looked damaged, helpless. Normally, this would annoy Bero, although he might still go after it. But right now? Bero’s vile eyes had a target, and they were not letting go. Bero started stalking his target, although made an effort to keep blending in.

He was small and swift, easily weaving through many other digimon where necessary and occasionally taking alternative routes to keep an eye at the human from higher ground or through some minor cover. Flashes of red skylight passed over his fur and scales with the occasional shadow coating part of him. He fell away very effectively in the shadows, had he been more stealth oriented, he would have been very effective at it.

But no, his will was not to remain hidden and unspotted by the unsuspecting human. With each turn and lack of direction the human’s actions had, Bero’s blood continued to boil as he spent an unusual amount of time and focus tracking the human and scampering in the are behind him. He would not lost track of this human, and he would not be making life easy for the human.

When the human had finally settled down, he made some verbal complains. Dull human language as usual, but he mentioned that parts of him were broken. As Bero suspected, someone damaged. Bero grinned wickedly. The Virus infection that had overtaken the air was in full effect, and Bero was by far one of the worst examples of a virus to meet in such conditions. From a nearby ledge by a building, shrouded in darkness, Bero observed the Human before talking.

“While i respect that you hang out with the garbage bin data which is the most fitting place for a human to be in this world, you still don’t belong here.” Bero’s voice was sharper, slightly more forced and spoken from a deeper tone. It was like he was trying to be scary, which in some situations would be laughable. But in the given situation, if the human looked up, he would see a small black dinosaur with a fur cape of sorts cloaked in the red shine of the sky, which shone just between some buildings to light up the Blackgabumon more than the environment.

Bero grinned, as his cloak slowly started glowing and flowing up as if affected by an updraft. Glowering a hint of blue, the sides of the buildings and the architecture around him started reflecting the blue glow, before it all suddenly erupted into a blue fire, in stark contrast with the red light. The blue fire had a violent violet centre and covered the blackgabumon’s cape entirely, the wicked grin on the lizard aimed directly at the human, broken bones and already suffering state be damned. The claws of the flaming cloak moved of their own accord and braced themselves against the edges of the surrounding building, ready to help him launch towards the human or descend slowly, when either proved necessary.

The reply did not throw Bero off in the slightest. He was feeling far too energized and ready to fight to let anything except prevention of combat entirely make him feel distraught. Bero could see even small hints like the human’s attempt to ball his wounded fist in anger. It was that Bero wasn’t in combat at the moment that he could observe every little move the human did. He knew he was hated at first sight. Good, he didn’t need a human liking him. It was easier when they hated him from the very first moment.

He descended from the banister to the ground, it was surprisingly high, and that fall would’ve been scary for any human. Bero, however, fell down as a blue fireball and landed without much hindrance, his fiery blue cloak already ready to go on the assault when the time called. Bero figured he could fit a little more painful truths. He slowly stood to his own full height after landing and stared towards the human, taking in the human’s expression and comparing it to that of a fearful digimon. He knew he didn’t need to say anything, but everything felt so much sweeter when you could rub it in a little.

“Your kind is as dumb as ever, thinking words will do anything in a world of strength. Don’t worry, i won’t just be slinging mean comments and asking you what you mean… I won’t waste your time with anything except the truth. And i’ll even be sending you home! With a few reminders of why -you-, weak, helpless creature, do not belong here.” The last comment was quite obviously a threat. It was accompanied with a gesture of the small beast’s blue flaming claws moving into a powerful stance, ready to strike at the human, the beast patiently giving the human one last chance to appeal to him, moreso to draw out the man’s irritation than to actually change his mind. Bero was absolutely confident that nothing was going to stop him now.

Bero’s body tensed in irritation and anger as Saruyuki suddenly got confident and less desperate despite the situation. Or was it that he hid his desperation due to the fact he was so desperate? Either way, He would not get away with calling Bero shit. Bero’s expression went from gleeful mischief to pure anger in a single motion. There was no more satisfaction from the interaction and letting the human talk. How foolish Bero was to think something nice and enjoyable would happen at the hands of one of these dumb humans.

“Some call me a bully yes, but allow me to remind you it’s YOU who decided to be part of the trash, not me.” he snarled. Clearly the man had pressed some kind of button to piss of the cloaked fireball of a dinosaur. In truth, it was simply that Bero was covered in buttons and pissing him off did not require much effort. Bero recognized that the human had gotten in combat ready stance. “Good. I like it when you single function frameworks try to fight.”

The insult would sound strange being received by a human, but for Bero, it came out all too naturally. Bero’s fiery body burned hotly as he used two of his four claws to jump to the wall opposite of Saruyuki, and then used his own legs and two of his claws to jump off of the wall, barrelling towards the human as a living fireball! He was not even aware of the Chute and how close it was to his target...

Despite all the smack talking Bero did and being so sure that he would be able to defeat a human, it remained to stand that a human within reason could avoid the more obvious attacks. Digimon did not move much faster than them, after all. The man’s yelping would give Bero a positive indication, but nonetheless, Bero found himself needing to recover instead of hitting the human.

Recovery would not be easy for Bero, as indicated by the fact he found himself close to a Chute. However, with his cloak’s claws being both prehensile and having strength to them, made that they could expand and hold onto the the edges of the chute. He went a small ways in before he used his cloak to lift himself back out and fall to the ground. He did land on his feet, but the effects of missing and having to recover were notable, giving Saru time to react further after his dodge. While powerful, Bero wasn’t about to go jumping off of walls left and right. He was still just a rookie, for now.

Bero was indeed recovering for a moment, having fallen down and giving Saruyuki the moment the human just so needed, to get his foot just where he needed it. Right towards Bero’s face. Bero was not unfamiliar with this sensation. The feeling of sheer foot hitting his snout and deforming it, pushing it away and back, the entirety of his face scrunching painfully for just the fraction of a second before a kick would be finished and he’d feel the force ringing and shivering through the entirety of his body. Last time, the kick was meant to positively knock him away, kicking him as if he was a ball. This time, the kick felt more fight oriented, more capable of damaging him.

Bero’s head was slung back from the force and he was forced back half a foot due to the sheer impact of the kick, but he wasn’t sent flying. His head reared back down after that nasty kick, and a pained grunt came out. “That. Fraggin. Hurt.”

He hated how he was so weak a human could impact him with this kind of force. He could not wait until they were more suitably below him in strength. But for now, They were a problem to him and actually sufficiently posed as annoyances. Bero was too angry to think straight now, the rush of all his emotions mixing together with the Viral sun egging him on. He wanted to see the human suffer, at his own hands. Wounded or not, this human, like all others, deserved to feel pain. Bero roared out in almost wild fury!

In his Roar, Saru had a short time to perhaps try to start running away from Bero, or perhaps he already had been running, but Bero’s reach of 5 meters was not easily escaped! His cloak extended to grab at the human, Bero using his normal digimon arms to grab the cloak arms. As if holding Saruyuki with a grappling rope, he heaved and turned to launch the human over himself, without paying much attention to where he was throwing! Had the human not gotten any luck in dodging any of this, he may find himself barreling towards the chute entrance!

It was a powerful, blind fury toss that Bero had performed. He’d be so angry he might have killed the human, something he realized afterwards. He cursed himself for letting himself get this fiery. Getting the human unconscious was fine, getting the human dead would possibly get him in way too much trouble. He swore to himself and forced himself to dim the flames. He was somewhere between wanting to beat the human up more and wanting to assure he wasn’t going to get into some dumb trouble because the human had gotten way more hurt than he had anticipated. He then checked where the human had exactly been thrown too.

Wait.

Where was the human?

“Oh Sukamon.” Bero said as he realized what the clanging was and saw a slight denting in the area of the garbage chute. Oh no, he still wanted to check after the human too. Well, despite his offence to the Human’s earlier comment, Bero actually wasn’t too opposed to dwelling in trash. Often that was the easiest places to start brawling, if it wasn’t too thick with the champion level trash Digimon. Well, time to go into the rabbit hole. So much for enjoying the pleasant atmosphere that the Viral sun had graced him with.

Jumping to the edge of the garbage chute, he looked inside. With his smaller frame, it’d be a lot easier getting through it than the human, likely, but that didn’t mean it’d be much more enjoyable than how the human had it. He started wandering in it, carefully feeling where he was going before he realized it went straight down just one step in. Well, that explained why the human had vanished down it so easily, there was hardly a choice if you got tossed in at the wrong angle.

Well, there was nothing to it but to let fate pull him through this rabbit hole. With a careful jump, Bero braced every part of his body for the trip down. And what a trip it would be. The data of this chute had clearly been sloppily made or repaired once too often, as instead of the logical straight path and if necessary, Data transfer protocols to speed up the process, it was just a long, physical, winding snaking path of metal confines. Every bend and turn would have metal slamming against your body, which did not make the trip easier! Someone like Bero was not excluded from most of the pain of the bashes, although he had tensed his body, that still got him getting hit as hard as anyone and anything else going down would!

“Who th-Ow, Sukamon- Frag Coded t-Son of a Salamon! Aich!-This SPAGHETTI MESS” Bero yelled out as he had a very unpleasant trip down, the banging of objects against him not at all like the pleasantry of a battle where you were just trying to pay attention to everything and teaching yourself to block more moves! No, this was a barrage of unfair jabs from the darkness, whacking against every part of you at random intervals, awaiting your inevitable pain as you continued, as long as you still fit! “I need-Agh!-A Word with t-Ngh!-idiot w-Brlrblrbrlrrrbl!”

Bero found himself suddenly pelted into a stream of water, the sound of hissing mixing with the sound of rushing garbage water! Bero felt the liquid rush in and stream into every crevice and caveat of his body, as it sickly and stickily worked onto him. He felt a shock of coldness rush over him as he was rolling in the liquid, the pressure of its movement dragging his body without him having any control of it, every spin and roll accompanied with gross water data flicking off of his body into the air and parts of his body re-submerging themselves into the icky data.

Despite the slightly different route that Bero had ended up taking due to the Chute’s sorting systems receiving the rookie digimon differently, his venture would lead into the very same lake of filthy water and pitch black environment. Without the dryness given by sunshine and uh… Literally not being underwater, Bero could not generate his own light out of his cape. He found himself launched underwater first and foremost though, finally in a larger, ickier, thicker body of water, filled with little junk things at his feet and parts of the fluid being a lot more viscous than he’d desire. He started swimming what his gyroscopic code told him was upwards!

With much effort, he made it outside of the choking and heavy weight of the water above him, his horn and head reaching air. He could hardly see, and his size definitely did not make swimming any easier. The rate he’d swim at would be much comparable with the human, if not only due to the fact all four his normal limbs were functioning. Had the human not been so broken and battered, he’d have gotten an absurd head start in this world of trash from Bero.

Nonetheless, the human had some head start of sorts, and Bero slowly starting making his way to wherever he could stand. He could hardly see and filthy code lapsed and waved towards his head and eyes at every paddle and stroke of swimming, until he finally made it to the edge of the water. He spat and grunted, working himself onto some trash. He felt sticky and bogged down all over, but he had a remedy for this. Sputtering and unpleasant hissing sounded off of him as he moved to even drier parts of the garbage pile he had found himself on. It would take a good while before the soaked cape would dry properly, steam coming off of it before small wisps of blue flame started appearing. Bero would wait in patience until he was heated back up again and the blue fire could help him see and lead the way in the messy underworld.