Counterpoint [Eva] [Valentine's]

"You need this. Love, drunk you. Xx."


Eva scowled at the sloppily written note almost as if she hoped that the force of sheer hatred would somehow cast both it, and this stupid situation along with the offending sticky note back to whatever moronic hell both it and her drunken self crawled out of. Simply being a no show was an option, heck, it was still an option but something about doing that left a bad taste in her mouth. There was likely some sad git waiting being all super excited about this blind date, something that would make their damn week, month, or even year even if it amounted to nothing more than dinner and a conversation. Not turning up? Not only could it shatter a person to be left standing out in the cold like that, it would just be an act of sheer rudeness. One, that she couldn't even think of an excuse for.

If she was going to make the effort of attending, she at least had to do her best in order to look nice for it, but, that was proving to be a difficult task. A long sigh left the digimon's lips as she stared into the bathroom mirror, as nude as the day she was hatched, wiping away a section of condensation to look upon her reflection, the glass under her hand's rubber "fingerprint" like grip pads making a subtle squeak in protest. She closed her eyes, looking down and away from the cybernetically "enhanced" creature staring back at her. Black carbon fibre and titanium, warm water still dripping from their smooth, cold, unnatural surfaces grafted to digital flesh in a pale human imitation of what the real thing once may have been. Broken, and reforged to fit their image so that they might craft their "human 2.0".

She raised her fist, her very "muscles" in her arm and hand subtly whirring mechanically in response, almost as though it was mocking her, as though it was trying to drill it in even further. "Not whole. Not real. Not a real Renamon. Not a even complete digimon." She reared back to strike it, to strike at her own reflection, own image, before stopping, leaning on the mirror holding her fist palm side to it, a single tear, lost in the water still dripping from her still soaking wet body rolling down her face and splashing upon the cold, hard tiled floor.

She just stayed there, near motionless save some deep breaths she took in a desperate attempt to calm herself down and even slight trembling as waves of both rage and sorrow washed over her like turbulent waves upon a jagged craggy shore. She looked again, back to the abomination in the mirror, almost as though in the vague hope that somehow in the brief interim she had magically transformed into something she deemed presentable, but, alas, that was not the case. The same image as before still sticking around, never to change, no matter how much she would have wished it to.

The Renamon stood back up fully, towelling herself off, casting it aside onto the tiles when done. She had to do this. She had to at least make an appearance, but, the question was becoming what to wear. Eva's usual approach was to hide, was to blend. A hoodie paired with baggy cargo pants and sneakers was the typical attire for her, but, such an "occasion" would require something more special. Nonetheless, hiding herself was still the name of the game, if not through her typical attire, a trick of the light via her holosuit would have to suffice even when wearing something "classier" and more "flattering". A simple click of a button later, and the reflection turned to one of normalcy. A pleasant looking human woman in place of the abomination. A comforting lie, to hide a painful truth.


ONE HOUR LATER


This seemed to be the place. A tall glass and steel monolith nestled amongst the others in the heart of the busy metropolis of Terminus City. A slight breeze blowing through her deep red hair, let down to its full length just above the shoulder rather than tied back as per Eva's usual. "Ugh... How do people even walk in these?" she mused, looking down to the light cream-tan coloured high heeled open shoes she had upon her feet tjat she had paired with what she hoped was an "elegant" and "classy" attire befitting such an occasion, a navy blue slightly lacy cocktail dress with a brown leather belt around her waist and a slim, simple silver necklace sitting around her neck.

She briefly took a glance around her surroundings, dark mint green eyes taking in the details of the city, their synthetic nature almost perfectly hidden by the holosuit's trick of the light. No matter how many times she came here, it never felt quite right. A great city Terminus might have been, its skyline's great, magnificent shining monoliths of steel and glass a testament to the countless architects and workers that brought them forth into the world, but it all felt a little off to the digimon. The structures were almost too perfect, the streets, too clean, it was as though this city was a mere model, a thing upon an architect's table detailing a dream city, only scaled up exactly so that people may roam the false streets in the place of a real city.

Nonetheless, she walked ahead, glancing to her phone to check if she was still making good time. Seemingly someone had already placed signs around the place directing would be blind daters to their appointed meetings, a cheery secretary behind the desk piping up as Eva entered.

"Good evening. Are you here for the blind date?"

"Yes, unfortunately."

"You're right on time then. That'll be just this way. Take the elevator to the top floor and you can't miss it. A lot of people have gathered there already."

"Thank you. Well. I guess I'll go get this over with then."

"If you don't mind my asking, you, uh, don't sound particularly excited about this. Most people were far more eager about joining in on our little event."

"A "friend" set it up for me."

"Oh? Must be a good friend you have there then."

"I would hardly say that. Anyway, top floor yes?"

"Mmm hm! We have a restaurant up there, one of the best in the city.
The views are simply stunning."

"I'll bet. Well, thank you. Have a good evening."

"To you as well, and uh, good luck!"

A short elevator ride and she was too on the top floor, along with her "blind date", a digimon, of what sort Eva couldn't tell apart from the fact that whoever or whatever he was, he had a pretty snazzy tux, directing her to Suzuran. She gave him a polite nod, the amber light from the tall windows doing most of the illumination in the otherwise dimly lit establishment, the rays of low golden sun lighting up the holosuited digimon's sculpted features as she approached Suzuran, extending her hand for a handshake, her strong English accent easily apparent in her introduction.

"Good evening. Seems we've been paired up together in this farce. My name's Eva."




(I think I over padded and over described things. Sorry...)

It was a relief at least, the thought that she wouldn't be gravely disappointing someone by walking out. That was in fact, the main reason she had shown up at all. "Good to know I wouldn't be leaving someone standing out in the proverbial cold if I ended up walking out but..." she paused, looking up and quickly thanking the waiter who came to fill their glasses. Eva was no wine expert but with knowledge acquired from a few bored late night google searches, this was certainly some kind of deep full bodied red. Perhaps a digital recreation of a Merlot or a Cabernet Sauvignon. 

"...would be a waste to just walk out on this, seeing as we've both already paid." With that, the waiter showed them to their table, menus already laid out in front of the pair. The digimon started to scan through it, scanning around for anything that took her fancy, looking up again at her "partner" in this little event.

"Well, this is certainly expensive looking. You said someone paid for you already? Must have really wanted you to get out and meet people."

"You travel with a human?" Eva raised an eyebrow, taking a sip from the wine that was provided to her. Seemed this stuff wasn't at all bad, her thoughts wondering slightly on how this could have been made. She had never seen any grapes in the digital world, let alone any vineyards. Perhaps they took a bottle from the "real" world and somehow replicated its contents. "I've Never been with a "tamer" myself. I sometimes wonder how things would have turned out differently if I had. Bah. Doesn't matter."

She continued to peruse the menu. What even was something good to get for a "date"? This wasn't exactly a situation she was familiar with.


"What about you? Given you did not seem to want to come to this place, I take somebody else signed you up?"


"Somebody else, in a manner of speaking. I drank too much, woke up the next morning with a note written in scrawled handwriting simply reading "Dear sober you, you need this. Love, drunk you". Payment had already gone through, and I had no real way of cancelling it apart from just not showing up which would be a waste of money, plus, downright impolite. Especially if the person who would have been assigned to me was really looking forward to this. Would hate to ruin someone's day by being a no show."

"Honestly? Humans are not half bad if you're lucky with them. They are just annoying and feel like you owe them or something just because fate wanted for you to be paired with them. Mine is an overly cheery bag of energy that, for some reason, feels like she needs to intrude into my life in hopes of fixing it or something. Not the best by any means, but far from the worst."


"Hey, at least it sounds like they're trying to be helpful. They come in all types from what I've seen, just like digimon really." She continued to peruse the menu a little longer, letting out a soft chuckle. "So many choices. Don't think I've ever eaten out in a place as fancy as this before. This is slightly embarrassing, I actually looked up what the "best" thing to order on a date was to give a good first impression. One of those stupid clickbait sites you see everywhere on the human internet. Figured if I was going to go I'd at least try to make an effort. Pssh. What do they know? I paid enough for all of this. I'm at the very least not going to go for some half measure. That'll teach 'em to set a fixed price for this."

No half measures indeed. Eva just straight up went for one of the most pricey things on the menu. A damn expensive filet mignon steak, seemingly one of this restaurant's signature dishes. To be fair, Eva was slightly unsure of this. She had not seen a cow in the digital world after all. Nonetheless, those suckers set a fixed price? Eva was going to milk it for all it was worth.


"I guess I am glad you decided to show as your sober self than your drunken one, then."

"Oh, I don't know. Some say I'm more fun when I'm drunk. Not sure, I have a pretty hard time remembering things the night after."

"I guess you are on your own... then? What do you think of that life? Being honest with myself, I might be missing it a bit. Not being shackled by a human would feel so pleasant at times..."


Eva had to think of that one for a bit, eventually coming up with a response."Not sure. I don't really have anything to compare it to I suppose, I've always been by myself. I guess it comes with pros and cons. Pros, you've got more freedom. More autonomy. Less to worry about. Cons are the obvious, what with being alone and all." Something interrupted the holosuited digimon's musings though. A scuffle, not more than a few tables over.

"Ey up. Date's obviously going well for those guys. Oh crap."



INCOMING PROJECTILE...

DEFENCE SYSTEMS ONLINE

STORMSHIELD EM BARRIER ONLINE

"I have yet to see a digimon on their sane mind make a claim of ownership on another sapient being, however. Seems to have way more frequently with humans."

"You haven't? I've seen a couple that would try it. The thing is, most of the humans that seem to become tamers? They're children, or teenagers. I don't think they fully understand the implications. I get that impression a lot actually, that they don't know what the hell they're doing."


The holosuit's illusion flickered, dying with a final flourish of light and a small wisp of smoke, a plate shattering, broken ceramic glinting off of a quick shield of brilliant orange sparks. Eva's brow furrowed as she felt the heat in a hidden pocket of her dress from her now very likely heavily damaged holosuit emitter. Another expense that was at least indirectly caused by earlier drunken stupidity. "Brilliant. Just Brilliant."

The revealed figure sighed, glancing down at her arm, her left, as the mechanism whirred and clicked; resetting itself back to its neutral position. The revealed digimon seemed to be a Renamon, at least, perhaps once was, but to say something was off with her human like figure and even movement was to put it lightly, a result of seemingly all four of her limbs being replaced with ones of carbon fibre and titanium which while her clothing was still very much intact, apparently not part of the holosuit's image, they were not doing much to hide the machinery.

She sat back down, looking down at the floor. When she finally did look back up, it appeared that not even her eyes were spared from the "enhancements". They were much like the arms and legs, hollow biomechanical imitations of the human form. "So much easier to hide all of... this... with a holosuit. So much easier for me to pretend it just doesn't exist."

Eva glared down at the holosuit emitter, holding the device in her hands. It wasn't a disc so much, more a small black box, a red LCD screen flashing an error message. "I can't fix this here. Damn. Shield completely fried it."


"I cannot believe I am having a more or less decent conversation with somebody, and then I have it interrupted because of a troglodyte. I swear."

"Yeah this is why we can't have nice things. Someone will always come along and do something stupid like that."

The cyborg sat back down, muttering another curse under her breath as her cybernetics gave a slight whirr, a glint of evening light through the tall windows catching the flag of the United Kingdom, and the NanoWerx Industries logo emblazoned in white against the black carbon fibre of her left shoulder.

"Given your reaction, I assume you have been given those without your consent? No Renamon I have seen before was like that, at least that I recall."

"I never asked for this, no. I can probably assume with a fair degree of certainty that there aren't any other Renamon like me either. I was the only one turned into, well, this."

"Nobody deserves what you've been subject to. Yet... I still find intriguing you decide to stand by humans after this."


Eva paused, pondering to consider what Suzaran just said there. Why? Why did she care about them? She couldn't even pinpoint it herself if she thought about it, let alone give a solid answer. Because it was the right thing to do perhaps? Because she saw a lot of herself in them? Or was it because it was comfortable to do so, their world making sense while a one made up of data remained so alien in her mind.


"I'm not sure. There's more than one answer to that I suppose. I wasn't so willing to "stand by" them at first, I can tell you that much."

"If I were you, they would probably have not been as lucky. But I digress."

"That wouldn't have really solved anything. Might have made me feel better in the short term I suppose, but, in the long term? It would have made things far more difficult. Anyway, yes, probably should."

She politely waited for the other digimon to order first before speaking up and placing her own, having to quickly explain that she indeed was still the same person that walked through the door, only her holosuit had failed thanks to some idiot throwing plates around. After she ordered the filet mignon, and the waiter had returned to give the orders to the kitchen, she looked back to Suzuran.

"Another reason I suppose, is that such hatred would be pointless in of itself. What is done, is done. I can't change it, they couldn't even change it. Hate, is an easy trap to fall into. It's easy to let it cloud your mind, your judgements, your actions. Best not to give it the opportunity."