It's Gonna Be Alright [Colin]

Skadi was heavily trying to relax as she waited for help to arrive. God knows how hard she was trying to comprehend the situation. For one, she absorbed and loaded Arkadimon completely just to make sure no-one else would get hurt by it, out of sheer panic and desperation, a last ditch attempt so no-one could get devoured by it's claws again. Her partner had been only rendered unconscious by Arkadimon's attacks, now sleeping just to ease the pain.

Please hurry up, She thought again, I can't bear to wait much longer. Still laying on her partner and friend, she still lay near his side, at the very least trying to keep him warm until some form of help arrived. As well as fishing for help via Tamernet, she also texted his dad as well, informing him of what happened. Was it a dumb move? Probably, but it was one made in desperation, to at least get her friend home, lest anymore harm come to him.

Skadi's train of thought was quickly interrupted by the ever-growing sounds of a wailing siren, accompanied by bright flashing lights from a motorcycle, grabbing her attention easily. Quickly, she panicked and cowered in fear, hands on her head, more onto Kenny's belly. Was this the DATS those people on Tamernet were talking about? She was ready to spring up to them, ready to explain that she was trying to prevent this from happening, that she was a hero, no-one to fear upon being questioned.  She cowered further as she heard the motorcycle come to a halt near where they were.

As soon as a voice spoke up, however, in a calm and gentle voice reassuring, she slowly moved herself out of her cowering position, and looked around to see who said it. It didn't take long. In front of her stood a late-teenage boy with black scruffy hair, along with 2 other people who must have had accompanied him. These must have been the people she contacted over Tamernet. The man who actually talked to Skadi called himself Colin, and referred to his 'partners' beside him, called Luke and Bellamy

"You- you will?" She said, slowly pulling down her hoodie over her head and smiling, "Oh, thank you. I was really getting worried sick there for a minute. I thought you were... n- never mind. The name's Skadi by the way, and that's my friend, Kenny." She pointed at him, still on the floor, breathing. It seemed that they were generally here to help her and her friend, too. She wiped her brow in relief. To her surprise, the 2 other people that stood near Colin, and whom he referred to, started to transform, one into an Elecmon, but with a bandana wrapped around their neck, and the other an Impmon, but with visible fluffy fur instead of more streamlined, almost unnoticeable fur like ordinary members of their species. Skadi rubbed her eyes to ensure she wasn't dreaming. She wasn't. She awkwardly approached the man and the Digimon with trepidation.

As the man asked about Kenny's condition, Skadi responded with a sad sigh, "Well..." she awkwardly rubbed her arm, "He's been stabbed, twice, may I add, by an Arkadimon." She walked back to Kenny, gesturing to the 3 the two wounds on Kenny's chest from the Arkadimon fight. It was not pretty. His tee had 2 visible rips in them, covered in a circle of blood. Both wounds were covered by cotton balls, soaked completely with blood. While they lacked proper healing capabilities, it was just enough to prevent infection from bacteria, and a potential scab to form. One was more clearly a stab wound, looking a bit large, and smaller dabs scattered everywhere, presumably from when he tried to cover the wound himself. The other was clearly more of a slash across the torso, larger than the stab wound, but not as deep. Either way, they looked painful. And from the way Skadi was describing it, it was clear who she was shifting the blame to.

"I tried to fight it off, just so I could keep him safe, but I got too confident, and let my guard down, And now he's hurt, because of me..." Tears slowly started to well up in her eyes. Although she tried to hold them off, not trying show weakness, it was practically apparent to them, clear as day, that she was starting to cry, "I- I tried to protect him, like he tried to protect me. I did everything I could to keep him safe, but it wasn't enough. I let him get hurt. I let him get hurt... just so he could save me... I couldn't protect him... I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." The more she continued, the more tears streamed down her face, and the more her body trembled.

She couldn't hold it in anymore. Without warning, she burst out into heavy crying, throwing herself face first into Kenny's chest once again, "I'm sorry! I'm such an idiot! I should've focused on keeping you safe first! I shouldn't had let Arkadimon hurt you like that, God I'm so sorry!" It wasn't a pretty sight. She was practically making a scene at this point, but she didn't care. All she knew at this point was that she failed her Tamer, and friend, bad.

So far, you may have noticed that Skadi had brought up nothing about what she ended up doing to Arkadimon, namely having absorbed it's data fully, preventing it from being reborn. She didn't want to them to find out about what she did, even if she knew she had a good reason to do so.

Still, upon witnessing the wounds on Kenny's body, Colin, Luke and Bellamy didn't have much to say about it, but coming from the disturbed expressions on the AEGIS agent and Elecmon's face, they didn't need too, honestly. Bellamy, however, seemed to observe the wounds, before Colin and the Impmon, presumably Bellamy, agreed for the latter to digivolve to his Champion form, Flawizardmon to 'handle this', which he did, except into a variant that took a lot off the Impmon form. As that happened, Skadi quickly shielded herself from the blinding light and glowing fire illuminating from Bellamy.

Around this point, after her explanation, Skadi had been so upset, tearful sobs flowing onto Kenny's chest and mixing in with the blood, that she failed to notice the Elecmon, Luke, coming over to pat her back to reassure her. It caught her off guard, as she immediately looked up in shock, before turning over to the empathetic Elecmon reassuring her of both Kenny's safety and the Flawizardmon's healing skills, and Colin backing up his partner on that. Skadi was still crying, but she did manage to give a genuine smile to the trio, as she said, "T-thank you, guys." She wiped a tear from her (hidden) eye.

As Skadi directed her gaze to Bellamy the Flawizardmon, the Wizard Man Digimon informed Skadi about his technique, and told her to stand back, before Luke would help her to do so. She didn't resist. She knew they were being honest. "Okay, I will." She replied softly. Following Luke's lead, she willingly was directed away from Kenny, before the Flawizardmon cast the spell 'Evergreen Flame' onto her partner, coating him in a green light. 

As the warm, fire-like light enveloped Kenny, Skadi could only watch as the cotton-covered wounds started to patch up. They started to slowly close up, so the cotton could easily be peeled off by anyone. Skadi could only smile as the wounds started to heal up, and the cotton stopped sticking, as while the leaked out blood still remained, no more would follow as the wound was covered up, leaving only a gummy pink scar in it's place.

Her relief would only be short-lived. Just as the wounds were healed up, she heard a car drive up to the park. She recognised that sliver paint on that car almost immediately. And with that, out stepped Kenny's dad, Michael, quickly pulling himself out of the car, only to see a horrific sight greet him.

A giant wizard beast thing was standing over Kenny, seemingly setting him aflame, and there was this sheep-like creature standing right there, the Mallimon nowhere to be seen. Accompanying the sheep was a red rabbit like creature with blue stripes and seven spiky tails, and a older teenage boy, apparently content to sit there and let his son burn to a crisp. His blood ran cold and his heart started beating like crazy. This was the exact thing he was worried what would happen to his son.

"What are you doing to my son!?" He shouted at the wizard, before charging at him as fast as he could. Before he could reach the wizard, the sheep jumped in the way, making him stop in his tracks.

"WAIT, STOP!!" Skadi yelled as she did so, panting in panic, "Don't attack them! They're on our side! They're just trying to help Kenny!" This started to confuse the father, "I called them too! He's going to be OK! These guys are miracle workers! Let me show you." She gestured at Michael to follow him as well, to show him what had happened.

As Michael walked over carefully to his son, he also look just as, if even more distraught, than how Colin and Luke looked earlier. His son laid on the ground, unmoving, with stab wounds on his chest. But thanks to the apparent work of the wizard, they had healed up. The shirt tears and blood was still there, but they were starting to dry up slowly. Michael gingerly leaned down and grabbed his son's wrist, feeling for a pulse. Skadi did the same too.

There was.

Michael started to cry softly, as he looked up to the wizard to address him. "You- you did this? Were you- were you actually trying to save my son?"

Skadi slowly approached Michael again, "Yes. He was. We were attacked by an Arkadimon earlier, but Kenny was really brave. He actually saved me too. He helped me to fight Arkadimon and saved my life. But, I just wished I could do more to protect him. I shouldn't have let him get involved in the fight. I should've digivolved earlier myself just to keep him safe." Tears started to build up in her eyes again. as she flung herself onto Michael, giving him a hug, "I failed to fully protect him. I'm sorry!" She cried hard again, this time into Michael's chest. The dad could only respond by reciprocating the hug back, feeling her fluffy wool against his hands.

With that, he looked up to the wizard and the older teen and asked, "Did you really do all this? Just to save my son?"

Michael could easily feel the tears soak into his chest as Skadi cried into him, but he didn't care at this point. All he was concerned about was that whenever his son was going to be fine. It seemed that he let his judgement cloud him earlier, as he had assumed the wizard was actually immolating his son alive. But in reality, it became more apparent the wizard was trying everything he could to heal Kenny. He turned his head to apologise to the wizard, Skadi still held in his arms as he did so.

"I'm sorry," He started, "I just thought you were..." But the wizard was too busy breathing heavily in exhaustion to answer to him properly. The teenage boy, however, would speak in his place, telling him that he, and his partners, were the agents of an organisation called AEGIS, who would stop Digimon threats and help others hurt by a Digimon, explaining that they were there only to heal his son. The fact that the red rabbit next to him added that it was caused by a 'Digimon with terrible powers', as they called it. It was clear now. He gasped softly at the sheer implications of what the rabbit Digimon said. "I understand." Michael replied, "I'm sorry. I just thought that wizard Digimon was setting my son alight, and I just wanted to make sure he was safe. Thank you." He gave a genuine smile to them, potentiall reassuring them of no hard feelings harboured inside of him.

The Elecmon would then turn to Skadi, reassuring her and telling her that her partner was going to be OK and she could only do the best she could. Of course, the fact that her friend had been healed, thanks to the workings of the Impmon-turned-Flawizardmon was enough to tell her Kenny was going to be fine. Still, she nudged Michael slightly, as if to say 'let go', which he did, then turned to face Luke, herself smiling sadly, "Thank you, Luke." It was apparent that while it was going to be hard for her to stop crying completely, she was calming down and speaking more coherently, "But I don't think 'my best' is going to be good enough for him. Not for now at least." She took a cursory glance at Bellamy, before turning back to Luke, "I'm-" another cursory glance, this time to Michael, nudging and urging his son to wake up, before back to Luke again, "We're glad you guys came here to help. I honestly can't thank you enough."

Maybe it would be bad form for a casual ne'er-do-well Digimon to go hug a professional on the same (power) level (and size) as her, but she outstretched her arms for a hug before approaching Luke, not sure if he would want to be hugged, nether mind reciprocate it, but hey, if she never tried, she wouldn't know. Bellamy could wait, he deserved a hug too, but he was a little too large to hug right now.

Speaking of, the Flawizardmon would address Michael, asking about if he indeed knew what Digimon were himself. Michael looked up to the Flawizardmon, still not moving from his dear son, as he answered, "Yes. I do. When I first moved here, I heard residents talk about these dangerous creatures called Digimon." He looked over to his unconscious son, "When my son told me he found a Digimon that wanted to be partners with him, I was reluctant at first, because I was worried that his Digimon, this Mallimon he named 'Skadi' would grow into a vicious man-eating beast," He gestured to the sheep, herself twiddling her fingers awkwardly. If this was any other situation, (i.e. nothing like what was happening right now), she would point out she evolved to her first battle-ready Rookie form, Valaismon, to save Kenny from Arkadimon. But she said nothing. It wasn't the time for that.

"Eventually, I agreed to let Kenny keep Skadi, on grounds that he be responsible for taking care of her, and she ensure that she kept her promise to keep him safe, and prevent him from getting hurt," He gave a sad smile to her, "From what I can tell, I'm just glad she tried her hardest to save him."

"Hey! Kenny helped too!" Skadi called out suddenly, running up to both Michael and Bellamy, panting heavily. "When I was still a Mallimon, he picked me up and bashed Arkadimon's head in with a big stick. And when Arkadimon was charging it's big beam attack, he managed to toss another stick at it and make it lose focus, and saved me!" She still looked a little sad, but no-one could easily deny how proud she was of Kenny for what he did, if her tone was anything to go on by.

Michael looked at Skadi with genuine surprise, "You mean my son was trying to save you?"

Skadi just shrugged, "Well, throwing yourself at the enemy, belly first, and exploding in wads of cotton can only get you so far."

Before either Michael or Skadi could continue, a low groaning sound emerged from Kenny, and he slowly shuffled on the grass. Darkness started to dissipate and clear up, as pulled himself up so he was leaning on the grass, looked around, and rubbed his head. Several blobs stood around him, coloured in red, dark grey, and a mix of purple and red as he blinked to regain his vision, before slowly transforming into a scruffy black haired teenage boy, a red rabbit, and most noticeably, a furry purple wizard bearing matchsticks. He yelped in shock. Was this the so-called 'Champion level' Akari warned him about?

Skadi gasped in happy surprise as Kenny got up, immediately throwing his arms around his chest, as she yelled, "Kenny! You're OK!" Michael did the same too, hugging his son and cuddling him as well. The shock didn't leave Kenny yet. He was directly in the vicinity of a Champion level. Arkadimon was bad enough. He just wondered if Skadi could handle a Rookie and Champion.

"Kenny! We're so glad you're OK! Please never scare us like that again!" Michael added, ruffling his son's hair as well. But his son's focus lay on the Champion level wizard Digimon. It certainly didn't seem like it wanted him dead this instant, but he was willing to err on the side of caution for this.

"Um... Skadi, what's that!?" He said, pointing to the wizard Digimon.

"Just a new friend of ours." Skadi replied with a smile of relief.

Bellamy would explain to Michael about what his healing abilities were capable of, and that it could exhaust him a bit upon use, then thanked him for not attacking him. But it did not remove the twinge of guilt that hit him, realising he may have accidentally let his son bleed out for longer if he actually gone through with it, had Skadi not intervened. He sighed a little, before continuing, "Actually, I should be thanking you for what you've done to my son. It's just that... my parental instinct just happened to intervene. I got a text from Skadi telling me a Digimon had attacked Kenny, and to come over immediately to take him. But she never specified which Digimon had attacked." He chucked a little morosely, "I'm sure it was a little misunderstanding on our part. Guess I should introduce myself properly. My name is Michael O'Hara, and we just moved here from Australia."

As Michael told Bellamy about this, Skadi shuffled a little awkwardly. In her panic, she forgot to specify Arkadimon was the culprit to Michael. Michael cared very deeply for his only son, and his (thankfully intervened) attack on Bellamy was out of sheer panic, rather than any intentional maliciousness. Skadi only did all this to keep her tamer safe from further harm.

As for Luke and Skadi, The Elecmon reassured the sheep Digimon by telling her about it was understandable how Skadi felt, and that everyone here would learn from this incident, commenting about her sheer love for her hapless Tamer before being surprised by Skadi's sudden hug. By now, a lot of Skadi's tears had dried up, and Luke, despite not being a fire Digimon like Bellamy, felt surprisingly warm. She didn't really need to say much else to him, that hug said more than enough. She slowly pulled away from Luke before wiping out a loose tear and smiling at him.

For some reason, Michael mentioning that he warmed up to the idea of letting his son have a Digimon seemed to interest the trio, and take Colin aback slightly. He wouldn't blame him. The fact that your son bringing home a weird monster that could grow into something potentially dangerous, but getting convinced to keep them may have been a little surprising.
Colin would then tell Michael about how humans could be dangerous even for Rookie Digimon. It didn't seem that far-fetched, especially for someone like Michael. Michael was quite big and strong, not enough to wrestle with dangerous animals like crocodiles, but enough to decently hold his own. Despite his apparent magic abilities, Bellamy's human-like structure didn't seem like enough to handle a powerful man. Skadi looked a little disquiet from this comment, while Michael looked a little bit more guilty from that. When Kenny hit Arkadimon, he made sure it hurt. "Ah, I see... At least Kenny did what he could do to protect himself."

Skadi just raised her hand, "And me too, don't forget about that."

As Kenny had woken up, he found himself embraced by Michael and Skadi, relieved that he was OK. But the shock of Colin, Luke, and Bellamy standing over him, the latter being a Champion-level Digimon just casually standing over him wielding matchstick wands. Luckily for the beguiled man, Bellamy put the wands away, before introducing himself and his own contemporaries standing near him, Colin and Luke, telling him he was the one who healed his wounds. Kenny's shock quickly turned into confusion as Bellamy explained this.

"Wait a minute, you did?" Kenny questioned. Michael nodded happily, and Skadi smiled at him, as if to say 'yes'. Both backed away a little bit as he pulled himself up to a sitting position and looked down as the gashes, or were the gashes Arkadimon left behind. His torso was still caked in blood, but it was practically dry at this point. In their place were pink gummy scars. Slowly, his own relieved smile crept onto his face, "Oh, I get it now. You did. Uh, thank you, Bellamy. I'm sorry, I remember being told that Champion Digimon were, you know, kinda dangerous to face, and my partner just literally digivolved to Rookie quite a while ago." He quietly mumbled to himself, "God knows Arkadimon was bad enough..."

That trauma wasn't going away anytime soon.

Michael approached his son again, a relieved, but concerned look on his face. He needed answers. "Kenny, tell me what happened here. I need you to be as honest as possible with me. What happened when Arkadimon attacked you?"

"OK, dad." Kenny replied. He sighed a little before explaining his story to him, "Well, I was just at the park today with Skadi, for a nice outing together. We were having lunch when we were attacked by this giant parasite, about the size of my hand and had a hidden knife in it's back. Skadi attacked it in retaliation, and it digivolved to Rookie out of nowhere." Skadi looked a little guilty upon hearing that, "I grabbed a stick to try and knock it out, but it stabbed me, forcing Skadi to retaliate by digivolving into Rookie herself. And that's when these weird things appeared right the hell out of nowhere." He leaned over, grabbing his Digivice and D-Terminal to show it to Michael, who felt an odd pang of familiarity in his stomach.

"Wait a minute," Michael asked, taking the Digivice from his son's hands, "Wasn't this the Digivice Alan told us about earlier?"

"Apparently," Kenny shrugged, "Akari and Alan did tell me these tend to show up when the time is right. Anyways, Skadi made quick work of Arkadimon after that, but when I thought Arkadimon was done for, I went over to embrace Skadi, only to be hit by a secondary, last minute attack by it, leaving Skadi to finish it off. And, that's how we ended up here... I'm sorry I wasted your time." Admittedly, he judged the situation a little bit prematurely, leaving him open to attack, giving him his own twinge of guilt.

After Kenny explained his story, Skadi could only twiddle her fingers awkwardly, as she knew she left this on her chest for far too long, "After I killed it, I absorbed it's data completely. Fully. I was so angry about how badly it hurt Kenny. And I didn't want to risk it returning to the Village of Beginnings, to prevent it from wrecking havoc once again." Her face indicated that, no, she clearly did not enjoy it. As far as Skadi knew, it was a little too risky letting Arkadimon be reborn there to feast on Digimon once more, especially as if Arkadimon made quick work of the squirrel, and potentially Skadi if she let it have the time of day. Kenny looked on in shock and confusion, remembering Akari's words about absorbing Digimon, while Michael looked confused.

Hopefully neither Colin, Luke or Bellamy would judge her too badly.

It was quite the sweet sentiment that Bellamy shared the same 'good dad' complex as Michael had, although to his confusion, the wizard Digimon casually mentioned having children himself. He looked a little confused upon hearing that, mainly because from what he had been told by Skadi, she hatched from an egg just like every single other Digimon, and Bellamy was neither reptilian nor avian, but that was something for another day. 
Similarity, after Bellamy told him about his friend's accents, Michael couldn't help but chuckle himself. After all, he swore he himself his own accent mutated thanks to his late wife back at home.

The trio then watched in intrigue as Bellamy started to glow and shrink down back into a small fun-sized version of his FlaWizardmon form into a smaller, fun-sized version of himself. And to Kenny's relief, Colin didn't seem upset at him, but he did tell him to remember for next time, and at least he was OK. "Huh. Guess you're right. Thank you." He smiled a little. It wasn't like he wasn't going to forget it anytime soon...

Skadi's sudden bombshell about loading Arkadimon in full was met with silence on both ends. Akari's words about absorbing Digimon data entirely rang inside Kenny's head. Digimon could absorb others to become stronger, but it was clear to him that this was something his partner did not want to do it willingly, and he himself would hate to be an accomplice for blatant murder on practically immortal creatures. Luckily for them, neither Digimon was judging Skadi too harshly, nor was Colin. It took her a bit to say something, but she did, "Uh... thank you, guys." She said quietly, "I guess I just got consumed by my anger, and I didn't want my friends back at the Village of Beginnings to die."

Kenny just turned to Skadi, with a look of reassurance on his face, "It's OK, Skadi. But promise me, next time we defeat a wild Digimon, promise me you won't load their data fully unless we really need to." He just sighed a little, "I know what Akari told us, but..." 

"I know, and I promise. But I told myself that I would never load a Digimon fully, ever. I just felt I was pushed to my limits today thanks to Akardimon." Skadi could only tell him, before sighing herself and adding "But at least I know that you're safe now, and so is everyone else." Her smile was a little bittersweet, knowing that the guilt would hamper her over time, but at least everyone here knew Skadi wasn't doing it out of sheer maliciousness, and even Michael didn't seem keen on holding a grudge, but he looked at Skadi worryingly. Well meaning or not, she could be dangerous still, but as of now, she was basically Kenny's only hope on staying safe.

It was then when Colin asked about how Skadi could hide her identity because of the risk walking around in the open, "You mean because of those DATS people you were talking about earlier?" Skadi asked Colin. Neither Kenny, nor Michael, having known nothing about DATS, looked a little confused.

"Wait, slow down. What's a DATS, anyway?" Kenny asked.

"I'm not sure, but they told me that they were allowing these guys going on this occasion. I don't know what that means, but it didn't sound good." She explained a little sheepishly.

Whatever the answer, Kenny took the Digivice from his dad's hand, before quickly analysing it the best he could, messing with the buttons to see which could do what, "Yeah, I just got this, so to be honest, I have no idea how..."

He never got to finish the sentence. All of a sudden, Skadi glowed a bright white, before transforming to bits of data and flying inside the Digivice, leaving only the pink jacket slumping on the floor. With a quick yelp, he dropped the Digivice on the floor. Michael looked a little startled too. "Kenny, can you tell me what just happened?" He asked his son, as the latter bent down and gingerly grabbed the Digivice.

He looked around the Digivice worryingly, "I've no idea. I just fidgeted with the buttons and it just absorbed Skadi, and I don't know what's happened. I just hope she's OK, at least."

"Of course I'm OK, you silly billy!" Skadi's now-cheerful voice called out from the Digivice, "I'm just in the V-Pet right now. But please don't drop me like that again. I think I have a bit of a headache now." She joked. It didn't hurt at all, but this was Skadi being Skadi, and after all the bullshit today, a bit of humour wouldn't hurt.

Kenny just turned to Colin, "Did I do that right? I mean, it's not like they give you a manual when you get those things."