Working Vacation (Hunt, Solo)

"Alright. Guess we're doin' this." Leith had only ridden a horse once in his life, and it was not a pleasant experience. At age 9, a carnival featured horses bound to a central pole that could only walk in a circle around the pole. Even still, little Leith found a way to ruin it. First, he could hardly balance on the animal even while it was still. Once they got mobile was when it really went wrong, however: he'd accidentally allowed his heels to bump into the animal's sides against the instructions of the handler, which it took as a command to start a trot. It may have been quickly pacified by the horse's handler, but nonetheless Leith wanted off immediately. And that was just a horse, Leith thought as he flashed back to the moment, Now we're talking about a giant, armored, electric digital lizard-dog.

"Just trying to figure out where to even grab." The vacation was Raidramon's idea. College was starting up soon, and both Leith and his partner new life was about to get a lot harder once the boy had to balance interdimensional adventuring with keeping his grades up. That was why the pair had come to visit the Binary Archipelago. Sure, there were plenty of real world destinations as vacation spots, some even right in Tokyo, but the advantage to a digital vacation was letting the digimon run a little more freely and extended relaxation time given the difference in speed of time in the two worlds.

The riding lesson on the beach, ironically enough, was Leith's idea. It had to be easier when the mount was at least as intelligent as Leith, he thought, and could both obey verbal commands instantly and actually try to be gentle. Of course, there were other challenges, such as the lack of both a saddle and something easy to grab onto. Nonetheless, both thought learning to ride would be important; travel around the digital world could become a lot freer and faster if the pair weren't bound to get around an entire world by taking the train; they got enough of that in Shibuya. One thing that made Leith feel a little more comfortable was that, even though Raidramon was much more confident than he was, at least Raidramon was learning right alongside Leith. "My legs are getting stiff here, Leith," Raidramon snickered at his Tamer's hesitation.

"Alright, alright. No more excuses. Three... two... one..." Leith might have had to jump and pull himself up if Raidramon had been standing up straight, but the digimon was kind enough to lay down flat for his Tamer. That meant Leith only had to perform a small hop to get one leg over Raidramon's back. He almost leapt too far and slid right over the other side, but with a little balance he managed to get himself evenly and uprightly sat on Raidramon's back. Even while the digimon was laying down, Leith's legs were spread just a little too far apart to let his bare feet touch the sand. The young man had come dressed for the occasion, clad in only swim trunks, a brightly colored t-shirt, and his wrist-mounted digivice. Man, lucky that thing came with a wrist cradle. I'd drop it on the first step if it didn't. Soon as Leith thought he was settled, he asked, "Is that comfortable?"

Leith obeyed. "Wait, what if I...?" As Leith slid back, he also leaned forward and grabbed the center of three prongs on Raidramon's back. "OK, that feels kinda good. But that means you can't use your Blue Thunder while I'm on your back." Leith felt the spike in his hands. "I think I'll want some gloves or something later, because this isn't an ideal handle. Something that gives me a little more friction and padding."

"If you go easy on me like we agreed." Being able to talk to his mount like this - and the fact that he knew him intimately - was really easing the young man's nerves. Raidramon seemed to sense that, because he began to walk parallel to the ocean at a nice, casual pace. Leith held onto that lightning-shaped spike with a death grip for safety but otherwise was quite at peace, finding he just had to grip Raidramon's sides with his knees, use his free hand for balance, and enjoy the ride.

"You're lighter than I expected," Raidramon bantered after a few easy steps in the sand, "You're not skipping breakfast, are you?"

"You're covered head-to-toe in armor!" Leith defended himself indignantly.  "If that doesn't weight you down, I kinda doubt I would!"

"Heh." Though teasing, Raidramon was actively trying his best to be as smooth a ride as possible, including lightening his steps and keeping in a good straight line (barring the slight curve of the 0-shaped island). "Ready for a little more yet?"

"Leith, shut up." That and the following chuckle was the boy's only warning before Raidramon sped up a little, closer to power walking. "Still hanging on?"

"That is not what I said!" It was no use. Raidramon sped up still further to a healthy jog along the shore line, his steps now splashing up a little water each time he set one of his heavy paws down. For Leith, this is when the challenge came; as Raidramon's body teetered and tottered depending on which foot, he had to hold on real tight on the spike with both hands both to keep his momentum tied to Raidramon's and to keep his body down on Raidramon's back. After a while in the jog he figured it out and only then finally stopped breathing so hard. "Yep, this is definitely why I need gloves!" As Raidramon considerately slowed to a stop, the rider added, "Wish there was some way to tie me down, too. I know this book about a kid who rides a dragon, and in it he uses a leather belt to tie himself to the dragon's spines. I wonder if we could-" Leith was interrupted by his digivice beginning to incessantly beep. "Oh, for God's sake, what do you want now?"

When the young man checked his wrist, he found his screen simply displaying three dots: one black, one blue, and one red. The black and blue dots were almost right on top of each other, too. Leith didn't have to guess what those two meant. Heh. My digivice knows me; black is definitely my style. Question is... what's red?

"I'm not completely sure." Leith carefully turned to sit sidesaddle style and then slid down off Raidramon's back to show the digimon his display. "That's us, and that one is... something." Leith then preempted his partner. "I already know what you're gonna say, and I'd actually be with you if it weren't for two things. One:-" The Tamer pointed out at the open ocean. "-it's in that direction. And two-" He then pointed downward. "It's down, as in under the water."

Raidramon shrugged. "So? It's finally a reason to use that diving kit program!"

"That... is actually a very good point." Out of solvables, Leith proceeded to browse through his digivice's programs until finding the 'Diving Kit.' Selecting the program caused a flash in front of Leith's face as a small apparatus appeared before his face. It resembled a cross between a hospital's oxygen mask for the nose and mouth a normal swimming mask for the eyes and nose, strap and all, except two small tubes also broke off on either side of the mask. Tentatively, Leith reached out and put on the transparent full-face mask. "Well... I can still breathe," he confirmed before also noticing, "And, hey! I can still talk, too!" Leith looked to Raidramon then, surprised to find that he, too, had been fitted with a very similar apparatus. It was even custom-fitted for his muzzle shape. So, Leith mounted Raidramon once more before it occurred to him, "Wait, can you actually swim with all that armor on?"

"I know how to find out!" Raidramon ran straight into the ocean. At first this startled Leith and made him want to chew out Raidramon for being reckless, but Leith supposed he could always cut the digivolution short if it didn't go well. Both parties kept their eyes wide open and breathed hard with excitement as the ocean completely overtook their heads. "How's your mask?" Raidramon considerately asked.

"Feels good!" Raidramon approached a dropoff right about then. "And we're off!" Raidramon kicked off of the dropoff and propelled both himself and his rider forward into more open ocean. At this point Leith wasn't so much riding on top of Raidramon as floating above him while hanging onto the center lightning spike. It seemed even underwater Raidramon was far faster than the boy could have been underwater.

"Adjust like ten degrees right," Leith requested of his digimon. Without a word, the armored reptile both knew how much to adjust and obeyed the order. "And, uh... we have to dive, too. About 25 degrees, I think." Again, Raidramon followed the command quite efficiently. "And from there, it's a straight shot. Just not sure how far." As it turned out, the answer was very. Leith and Raidramon could both feel the weight of water pressure bearing down on them more as they dove, and at such a steep angle the surface got very far away very quickly. At least the masks seemed to do their job right no matter the depth. "Alright, Rai, I think we're almost close enough to see- oh, my god."

"That thing's huge!" Specifically, 'that thing' was a titanic whale, only both knew better than to believe they'd really encounter an ordinary whale in the digital world.

"Shit... that gazimon had said there were whamon around and they were huge, but... Jesus." Leith consulted his digivice then. It showed the red dot moving at the same general speed as the whamon. "Uh, Raidramon? We've got a big problem. Literally."

"So, what do you want to do?" The fact that Raidramon asked for Leith's opinion was itself concerning; normally, the digimon would have preferred to face a problem head-on and convinced Leith to do so.

Not that it would have worked this time. "That thing is a marine digimon made to survive - and fight - underwater. I don't know what digivolution stage that is, but I think we can assume it's higher than you. I really wanna say we shouldn't be stupid." Leith looked at his wrist again. "Problem is, you-know-what seems very determined to get us there."

Raidramon surprised Leith then. "Forget the digivice! I can't put you at risk for that!"

"I can't believe I disagree, but the last time I took a crazy risk because of this thing, I ended up meeting the best friend I've ever had." Resolute as he sounded, there was no disguising Leith's fear. All his muscles tensed. His breathing was heavier, though apparently not heavy enough to overtax the diving system. His throat seemed to get narrower every second.

A mix of being emotionally touched and surprised by Leith's resolution had Raidramon speechless. While his thoughts rebelled against the idea of jumping into danger, though, the Whamon had noticed the pair of divers and turned to face them head on. Though it didn't attack the pair on sight, the body language unmistakably marked it as expecting confrontation, a territorial, defensive language. There goes my last hope that maybe it's friendly, Raidramon supposed. When did Leith become the daring one? He's been spending too much time with me. I guess I'm rubbing off on him. The dragonoid's inner conflict made him growl while he gritted his teeth, and the idea of confronting such an obviously superior foe made his tail twitch nervously. "Leith, I like adventure. I even a little risk. This is suicide."

"I want to trust, Raidramon!" Leith continued to push, "I want to trust the digivice to guide us where we need to be. I want to trust you to get us out of whatever jam it gets us into, and I want to trust myself to do what has to be done no matter how scary it is." Still the digimon did not budge. "Courage is not the absence of fear. It's action in spite of fear... and I'm saying that for myself, not just you."

Raidramon's growl crescendo'd from barely audible to almost a roar before he could make up his mind. "Leith, let go!" The young man didn't have to be told twice; he knew what was coming. "Blue Thunder!"

Out from the three black spines on Raidramon's back shot a bolt of blue electricity that (thank God) seemed to obey Raidramon's will to strike only toward Whamon, not everything in the ocean around the source including the Tamer! Of course the bolt was a direct hit. How could an aimed arc of lightning miss a giant, slow target? Equally predictable, unfortunately, was Whamon's reaction to getting zapped: there wasn't one. Not much of one, anyway. The Whamon momentarily convulsed, but after the instant of the bolt's duration, it recovered completely. Then, it spoke in a voice so deep and bassy that not only could both digimon and tamer feel their bodies vibrate because of it, they could watch the water shimmer, displaced by the sound wave. "Verrrrrrrrrry... gooooooooood..." Whamon then began to shine like its whole body had become a light bulb.

"Get away, Leith!" After ordering that, Raidramon touched all four paws to Leith and kicked off of him. That knocked the wind out of the boy, but it also pushed the young man far away from Raidramon and, by extension, the counterattack aimed at Raidramon expected to come. Whamon, however, did not strike back. Instead, its whole body began to compress in on itself. "Is he... shrinking?"

Leith, after recovering the ability to breathe, swam right back toward Raidramon as the digimon became smaller and smaller, smaller even than Raidramon, then even smaller than Leith. "That's... an attack?" It turned out the answer was no. When the creature finally stopped shrinking, it was the size of a football and the general shape of one, too. Only when its light faded did the true nature of the event become clear. "No way!"

"Stop staring and grab it!" Raidramon had a point; the object was sinking pretty fast. Deftly, the electric digimon swam past his Tamer and grabbed Leith's shirt in his maw in order to carry Leith toward the egg. Swift as he was, Raidramon even while burdened with his tamer was still able to get close enough to the object for Leith to reach out at it. Just a fraction of a centimeter before Leith could get a fingertip on it, though, the object transformed again. This time it became an even smaller ball of light that of its own accord flew through the screen of Leith's digivice - a process this pair had witnessed once before.

Leith didn't so much as dismount his digimon as fall straight off sideways once he was back on shore. He didn't seem to care about the six-and-a-half foot drop or the sand that would inevitably end up everywhere it could get. The young man was more concerned about two higher priorities: getting his heart rate below 250 beats per minute and admiring the shiny new treasure prominently displayed on his digivice's screen: DIGIMENTAL OF COURAGE. "See? Told ya... trust and courage and shit."

Raidramon had about the same idea as Leith; soon as his Tamer was on the ground, he himself flopped onto one side, stirring up some sand as his heavier form made impact. "The tables... turned..." Raidramon panted.

Leith, slowly coming down from high-stress mode, managed to sit up so he could make eye contact with his partner. "No way, Rai. All we've established is I'm stupid enough to jump off a bridge if the digivice tells me to." The boy pursed his lips before adding, "But, uh, that one thing I said? I meant that. It's important for me to know you know that."

"You didn't even have to say it once." Raidramon was just close enough to Leith to lean his head in and lick the boy's cheek once.

This did not have its intended effect. "OK, nope, now I take it back," he teased before thinking maybe that was too far. So he amended himself, "Alright, no, I don't. But seriously, that's fine from a dog, but from something that talks and acts like a person, that's just weird."

Leith lay back down, then, in the soaking sand, now regretting his soaked, sand-covered clothes and body. "Geez... I mean, I can't be too mad that we found another digimental. But come on! Wasn't this supposed to be a vacation?"