Can The Armless Fall? [MPC V - Ari dared me to do it]

It took her a while to finally answer. Was it because her author had been feeling super emo as of late and didn't wanna fuck up a thread like this? Probably. Was the author using the fourth wall as her bitch in order to inflate the word count? Again, probably. But the point of everything was, the normally headstrong, never-scared-to-do-anything Nanami stared at Omen's message for the longest time.

Omen want... a date? Like... to visit some restaurant or something? It was a little out of the blue, and Nanami wasn't a big eater, but that didn't seem so bad. But it was a bit of a conundrum going on right now...

Mu-kun had been missing for quite some time now, and Nanami was still trying to track her birb buddy. And Mu-kun vanished because Nanami had been a horrible friend and hadn't even noticed how she had been feeling as of late. She had been so obsessed with her sense of adventure and getting stronger that she never even saw how badly her rookie-level companion had been struggling.

Nanami had to find her again and at the very least apologize to her. To promise her that she wouldn't be such a terrible friend anymore. Even if Mu-kun still didn't want to be friends after all that, Nanami didn't want the ninja birb to have such an awful last impression of her.

But she was at a loss of what to do now. Omen wanted to see her, and she wanted to be a good friend. A better friend than she was before. But hanging out with Omen always made her happy, and did someone that was such a bad friend as Nanami really deserve to be happy? Or even worse, what if Nanami got so happy that she became content and... no! That couldn't happen!

Nanami shook her head furiously as she prepared to turn Omen's offer for a date down. After all, she had stuff to do! She couldn't just go hanging around with her other friends just because she lost one! She should work on making things right with Mu-kun before she could possibly deserve to be happy in the first place! She started to type her response, then stopped.

But what if she turned Omen down, then Omen got so upset that she also didn't want to be friends with Nanami anymore!? Then that would be even more terrible! The pink-haired girl flailed around as she rolled across the floor in indecision!

What the hell was wrong with her!? She had never had a problem deciding stuff like this before! Nanami sat up and starter banging her head against the wall. What to do, what to do, what to d-

"Captain..." A young man's voice called out as Nanami turned towards a Terriermon Assistant covered in grease stains. "I understand you pride yourself on your hardheadedness, but perhaps you shouldn't test it out on Ferry." He pointed towards the wall Nanami had banging her head against. The wall of the Trailmon the girl was currently residing in.

"The hell you freakin' out about, anyway?" A Lopmon asked, hopping atop the girl's shoulder and peeking at her D-Terminal. Curious, a different Terriermon popped up on Nanami's other shoulder, nodding thoughtfully.

"I see..." Cream noted in understanding. "Nanami, we have nothing better to do until we hear from Shiroku's sources. You might as well spend some time with Omen. Mocha and I can keep in touch with Shiroku if he gets in touch with his sources. We'll be here on standby if you need something."

"But... I can't just go around and goof off with friends while all this is happening! Besides, I don't dese-" Nanami's concerns were interrupted by large brown and pink ear batting her gently across the face, muffling her mouth in the process.

"Huh? Oh, sorry, I thought I was hearing somethin' stupid just now..." Mocha stated, giving her partner a glare. "Anyways, a friend wants to hang out. So while we're waiting to find out where we can stalk the damned bird that doesn't want anything to do with us anymore, how about ya get all fancy, doll up, and hang out with someone who actually wants to spend time with you?"

"Eh? Doll up?" Nanami asked as her Terriermon and Lopmon partners jumped the little girl.

---

And so, as the little girl, who had recently lost an close friend, went to meet another close friend in another city by riding in a new friend who also happened to be a train. How they met was a tale for another day, but today's tale involved the little girl approaching the bench, maybe a tad bit overdressed. Fancy black dress, heels, tied up hair, face powdered up with rosy cheeks, with the lips to match. A little girl barely recognizable at this point.

"H-hey..." She said, waving towards the Wispmon as she approached, all by her lonesome.

Nanami lowered herself down to return Omen's hug, patting the Wispmon on the head as she did so. For a ghost Digimon she sure was warm and fuzzy. She giggled nervously at Omen's compliment, thinking back on what happened. Omen had asked who did her makeup. "Well... I did, I guess..." She answered coyly. Mocha and Cream did their best, but all the did was throw a bunch of powder onto Nanami's face to the point where she looked like a circus attraction instead. But their enthusiasm rubbed off on the little girl, so she ended up doing it herself. But it was the though that counted!

And naturally, the perfectly mundane question that Nanami had been dreading nevertheless. She froze for a minute as she thought of an answer. Mu-kun had left because Nanami had been a terrible friend. At least, that was how Nanami saw it, rather than Mu-kun was an extremely melodramatic birb that couldn't process her emotions well and took everything too far. Regardless Nanami saw it as entirely her fault, and she didn't want to be an even worse friend by getting her current friends involved.

But lying to a friend was... that would also mean being terrible to your friends, right? So what was the right thing for a good friend to do? Wait... was the fact that Nanami didn't know what the right thing to do was mean that she was only ever capable of being a terrible friend? No wonder Mu-kun left! She must have realized it and...

The little girl felt a big ball of frustration building up inside her, so much that she wanted to throw up. But... she should say something, right? She should just say something and not lie to Omen, even if it meant not telling the whole truth.

"It's been really busy lately, but you happened to catch me at a good time, since I'm waiting for Shiroku to complete a mission when you asked me out," Nanami answered. Oh, a way to change the subject! "Speaking of, what did you want to talk to me about? I didn't really understand your message very well..." She let out a nervous laugh.

"Yeah... I guess makeup and stuff wouldn't work on most Digimon..." Nanami admitted, stumbling through her thoughts. "Well... I guess some Digimon could use it, like Cream in some of her forms, but... I don't really think she needs it..." Where she was going with this, Nanami didn't even know herself. Honestly, it just felt good to talk.

"But we can give it a try one of these days!" Nanami stated when Omen brought up her holosuit. "I don't really have anything on me right now, but maybe some other time!" And that was that for now, unless Omen wanted to beat a dead horse.

"Busy is good!" Nanami confirmed, nodding fervently. But was it really? Being busy with something else also meant that you were distracted. And you wouldn't always notice the things around you. Like if a friend was going through a personal crisis and you were so caught up in your wanderlust and search for thrills not to notice it and- jeez... everything came back to that, didn't it? But Omen didn't need to know about all of that! Omen wanted her here to do... stuff!

Stuff like... that people with feelings had for one another!?

Wait... but that meant...

"Oh... you're going out with someone? That's great!" Nanami exclaimed with a wide smile. Things were finally making sense! Omen needed ideas for a date so she called her for some advice! The dense idiot proudly placed her fist against her chest and proclaimed, "Leave it to me! I'll help you plan out the most perfect-est date in the history of ever!"

Granted, Nanami was by no means someone fit to help with something like romance. The little girl hadn't once thought of the notion of being romantically involved with someone. Nanami had never planned on living a long life, and being involved with someone like that just felt cruel and selfish.

But regardless of Nanami's inexperience, Omen was one of the most important people in the world to her! So much so that she was willing to throw herself out of her little pity-party just to see her! So of course Nanami was gonna try and... Nanami was definitely gonna make Omen super happy and the best dater in the whole wide Digital World!

Nanami nodded along, moving along with the conversation as Omen started... basically babbling at this point, clearly confused.

And when there was a confused Omen, a confused Nanami was sure to follow. "You're dating someone, silly! If you don't want to tell me, then I don't need to know..." Wait... but Nanami realized something. Omen was royalty so that meant that marriage might not be such a good thing!

Of course! Omen was confused right now because she had never met the person she was going to date! Her king grandfather probably had arranged it for her, so Omen had to prepare for all that! Nanami knelt down and patted the Wispmon's sides with a fierce determination in her eyes. "I don't know what kind of prince you're dating right now, but just know that I'm on your side, no matter what happens, okay? And even if things get serious, there's no way that we'll stop going on adventures and everything!"

It seems that the simple-minded idiot had forgotten the one big thing plaguing her mind recently... for however long that lasted. Funny how the people close to you can do that, right?

Huh. Things seemed to have gotten completely derailed from... whatever it was that it was when it had started. Not that Nanami knew how to fix any of that. It was probably best to just start over again and clear the air! The two seemed to have been on completely different wavelengths.

"Oh, then you're not dating anyone, then! Then that makes things simpler!" Nanami confirmed, following along and listening instead of just assuming the first idle assumption that her mind wandered across. "Then you just wanted to hang out, then! I got caught up on the word 'date'!" The girl nervously laughed off the misunderstanding. Even laughing felt a little forced though.

"And that's right! I'm a... pirate and a prince..." Even though she didn't deserve to be called that. What kind of prince would... something something Mu-kun is gone and Nanami is sad now. You get the idea by this point.

And Nanami was relieved to hear Omen's stark denial of not going on adventures anymore, either. "We're not one of the best teams in the world..." No team with Nanami could be considered that right now. But... she was getting too depressed, Omen would definitely pick up on that! "We're not one of the best, because we are the absolutely, the very best team in the world! There hasn't been anything that we've failed to do before, right? We can do anything together..."

And Nanami genuinely believed that. And if that were true, didn't that mean that if Omen and Nanami teamed up, they'd be able to...?

Well, that wasn't what they were here for! There was some fun and stuff to have, right? "Anyways, enough about all that confusing stuff! I'm here, and you're here, so what do you want to do, first?"

After the whole confusing debacle, Nanami let out a sigh of relief. It would honestly be weird if Omen was dating someone, after all. Nanami had never tried that kinda stuff before so she probably wouldn't have followed along very well.

"Pirate Prince..." She repeated, trying out the nickname. "The Pirate Prince of the Broken Heart crew... That makes me sound like I'm a womanizer or something... So I guess that can sound piratey!" She declared, the girl's logic lost to time. But she seemed to genuinely like the idea, so that was probably a win!

Omen had recommended lunch, and Nanami wasn't feeling very hungry, then again, she hardly ever did, but it seemed to be what Omen wanted, so Nanami figured she should agree. And... Omen wanted to cheer Nanami up? Even if she was down in the dumps, the little girl thought she had been hiding her feelings super well. The fact that Nanami was terrible at hiding any kind of emotion had never occurred to her, unfortunately.

But if Omen cheering Nanami up was gonna make Omen happy, then Nanami would most definitely pretend to be cheered up! She could at least be able to do that much... right?

So Nanami put on a big smile, rubbing her belly as she practically yelled, "Oh, I'm really... really starving... and stuff! Let's go get, like... umm... sandwiches and stuff! With... extra food!"

Oh yeah, she was real smooth.

"I see, I see... I've never tried to seduce anyone before, and my mom told me that I should never, ever hang out with anyone that said I was really pretty until I was more grown up, but I guess a pirate would act that way, wouldn't they?" After all, didn't that one pirate guy... Nanami already forgot his name, wanna hit on her or something? She didn't really remember the details because he was such a small fry, but she was pretty sure he wanted to marry her or something like that. She was probably remembering it wrong but it wasn't really important, anyways. She hit her head so her memories of back then were all kinda fuzzy.

Regardless, Omen made her way down... a path... and led the way towards... a place with food. How yummy! Nanami let Omen get a little bit ahead of her at first before taking a deep breath, and slapping her cheeks to put a little more color in them. Then she put on the best smile she could before chasing after her Wispmon buddy. So long as they kept the conversation focused on Omen, Nanami was sure she could keep this up. "So I've only met your mom a couple of times... What kind of stuff do you two do together? It must be pretty extraordinary, a superhero and a princess all traveling together like that!"