Knock on Wood (Open)

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Have you ever been close to tragedy? Or been close to folks who have? It was amazing how used to things people could get over time - tiny, little things and habits that people formed without realizing it, and it was only when shoved into a completely foreign environment that you would start to notice them. Izumi hadn't noticed it, but now that she was finally on solid ground for the first time in a very, very long time it felt much stranger than it should have - the stillness of the ground beneath her feet felt so incredibly strange after spending months on open water or walking on sand, and it took a lot to keep her gait straight as the teen made her way forward. That wasn't to say that it was an unwelcome feeling, however. It was a long sought end to her journey from her home island to the mainland, and the start of something new. Izumi was admittedly a bit uneasy about leaving her makeshift "sailing" raft behind at the beach given how easy it would've been to continue northward just by following the shoreline currents, but that would've been begging for attention, something that she'd been trying to avoid for years now. There were perks to this, though - things that she couldn't experience from her pitiable little raft, things that she had missed. Jello too, apparently, as the little lilac colored blob could kindly have been described as "hyper" ever since the two of them had abandoned the shoreline and begun to make their way into the inland forests. There wasn't exactly a set path to follow, but that hadn't stopped him.... her.... it? almost eight years and Izumi still had no idea what gender the thing was, or if Jello even had one - probably something she should look into asking it sometime just out of sheer curiosity, but in either case that hadn't stopped the critter from blazing a trail ahead of her, zigging and zagging across the forest floor to investigate anything that so much as moved or might have been new to him. Her. It. So far, so good, but while Izumi was pleased with their progress so far they were still a long ways off. From what she could tell they had landed way further south than predicted, which meant there was a lot of ground to cover to correct that problem. They weren't completely lost - or at least she thought as much - but it would still be several days' worth of hiking northward until they hopefully managed to reach Tokyo or another one of the walled cities... assuming there were others. It'd been at least two years since either of them had heard anything of the outside world, and hopefully things hadn't changed too much. Until then, though - keep calm and carry on was the order of the day and Izumi would do just that, the Kuramon continuing to scuttle ahead of her along the dead leaves, roots and soil. @tag

made by duet of gs

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hang's dog had short brown fur, stocky tensed legs, and a set of long, jagged teeth protruding from a vicious snarl. It terrified Taiki to his core, and he'd shook with the memories of rabid dog persuit nightmares. Shang had claimed he didn't need a digimon to digi-battle, and he was just as good as the other digimon kids - "tamers" - as they were called, now. Shang had said his dog was hungry since his dog only ate digimon (a lie), and the dog's fangs seemed all the more pertinent.

The tiny poyomon had struggled in Taiki's arms, wanting to battle to protect Taiki, even though the dog was more than ten times its size. Taiki struggled just as much to keep the poyomon in his arms, wanting to protect the digimon. In the end, it was Taiki's legs that had saved the pair by running away.

The line of yellow that ran from Taiki's shorts to his ankle had dried now, and so had the blood on Taiki's arm. Poyomon's scratches had crusted over, too. But the digimon's determined grimace of rebelliousness only made its face-slashes more prominent.

"Please eat this, you have to eat!", Taiki's voice shook with the strain of worry as he tried to force a leaf into the white blubber blob's mouth. The arm that held the baby digimon was his wounded one, and poyomon's every move made his arm ache. Taiki grimaced himself, determined to show no pain until the digimon ate, because the digimon might not eat if he was hurt. Or something. He wasn't sure. Taiki tried again with nuts, dirt, berries, but it was all no use. Poyomon not having eaten in the past hour frightened him as much as the dog had.

The sound of rustling ahead broke their concentration. "Quick, hide", he muttered as he tried to shove the round digimon into his shirt. But poyomon simply rolled out the other side and down Taiki's legs as if it were a slide. It rolled, rolled, rolled, until it hit a tree. Dizzied and confused, it began to wobble and turn all about, and finally launched a stream of aggressive bubbles at the tree. Which happened to be in Kuramon's general direction.

Taiki froze as he saw the bubbles headed towards a foreign digimon, horrified.

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Have you ever been close to tragedy? Or been close to folks who have? If there was anything that Izumi had learned to do in the last four years, it was to read the environment around her - out of all the skills she had picked up it was probably that one above all else that had kept her hidden and alive considering the fact that neither she or Jello were going to take on other Digimon if they were found. The world noticed when things were wrong or out of place, and it was smart to take note of the signs when they were there - and as she continued on after Kuramon Izumi couldn't help but begin to feel on guard as a number of those signs made themselves known. Digimon were just as out of place in the natural world as humans often seemed to be, and the normal sounds of the forest had been steadily giving way to silence - only the sound of the wind and some source of water nearby. No birds or insects making themselves readily known, and while Izumi would've preferred to simply chalk that up to her presence alone old habits tended to die hard. It was just a vague feeling, a hunch, but after four years of having little else to go on she'd learned to trust that. Kuramon, however, could not have cared less - sure, it'd gotten quieter, but so what? So much to do, so much to see! The last time she had been on the mainland have been a good six, seven years ago, but for the most part it seemed fairly similar to what she knew of Aogashima before the attack. It was strange, really - when she had first arrived in the human world all she had known of had been steel, glass and concrete. And water. Lots and lots of water, but was this to mean that the forests were the norm rather than the exception? It was all rather confusing, but the only way to find out more was to go and see for herself, so that was exactly what she would do - explore and experience, at least assuming no one put a damper on that. Really, why would other Digimon attack them just for existing? Kuramon didn't see much sense in that, but then again... In having ventured so far ahead of Izumi, however, Kuramon had left her protector behind, and the sudden attack from seemingly nowhere would have caught the In Training Digimon off guard.... had the creature not amounted to a amorphous, free roaming eyeball. Having dealt with far worse in the past it was a simple matter for her to easily bounce up and off of the ground to float over the stream of bubbles, her eye following it back to the source and doing little more than staring at the other Digimon, body quivering for a moment in equal parts question and curiosity. Izumi, however, was not of a similar mindset - while too far away to react, the teen's distance allowed her to remain hidden in the bushes and vegetation of the forest as she witnessed the failed attack. Bad luck for them - she had been hoping not to encounter another Digimon before reaching Tokyo, but things weren't always what you wished they were. In either case, though, In Training Digimon weren't anything to be afraid of on their own - simply running up to the creature and punting it would've been enough to solve this, really - but as of yet there was no sign that it had seen her. If all it had encountered was Jello so far there was no reason to get involved - the critter knew how to run like hell, and given that this other one seemed unable to fly all that was left for her to do was sneak around it. Jello would find its way back to her like it always did, and with that thought in mind Izumi would begin skirting around the edge of the clearing, moving slowly to avoid making sound. At least until she saw the other human. Wait. Was the kid partnered like she was? Oh, he'd better hope not, at least for his sake. That did, however, present a slight problem, and a choice. On the one hand, if he was partnered with the other Digimon out there, the little bastard had attacked Jello - not something she was going to take lightly given the little blob's inability or choice not to fight back, but on the other hand... if he wasn't partnered, that complicated things. She didn't really understand how even a kid would manage to get caught by an In Training Digimon, but if that was the case and it wasn't alone, remaining undetected by his friends would be the least of her concerns as they'd already be on alert, so to speak. That, and there was the fact that the invading, unpartnered Digimon had made it quite clear what they intended to do to Tamers that they managed to catch, and as annoying as it sometimes was... well, only one real way to shut up that voice at the back of her head telling her to get involved. Best case scenario, teach the little runt a lesson for being what amounted to a bully. Worst case scenario, squash the little blob that currently had its attention on Jello, grab the kid and make a run for it. Mind made up, Izumi would continue to circle around the clearing as Kuramon simply floated and blinked at Poromon below, only emerging once she was behind the kid to make a grab for the back of his shirt. @tag

made by duet of gs

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he horror that hung on Taiki's face faded to relief as the other digimon dodged the attack with style, floating, gliding, hovering, whatever it was doing to remain in the air effortlessly for so long. As the creature they'd encountered amounted to little more than an eye in seemingly semi-liquid fluids, it was hard not to gawk at it. He probably should have said something, but words failed Taiki.

The Poyomon, however, had recovered from its disorientation and marveled at the Kuramon for a few long seconds. And then it began jumping up and down excitedly, blowing bursts of bubbles. It reminded Taiki of jump-rope. Poyomon hummed the digimon themesong (a tune that Taiki had never heard before), its bubbles creating extra trills in the tune.

"Are you... playing with it?", Taiki felt astonished, as he usually did when it came to this digimon that he felt sure belonged to someone else. He was merely hanging onto it until he could locate its true owner. If Taiki were any wiser, he might have realized that lone digimon meant a fight ensued, but alas, Taiki was oblivious. Just as he was oblivious to the fact that its trainer was sneaking up to him.

Suddenly, he felt a tug on the back of his shirt. All at once, he was on his back. His head hit the ground with a thud and his vision reeled in conjunction. For a few moments, his brain struggled to reboot, and when it had, he searched the air above him for clues to what had happened.

"Ow...", he grumbled, clutching the back of his head as he slowly rose to sitting position. "What was that all about...?", he talked to himself, not having seen the mischievous trainer yet.

Poyomon seemed indifferent to Taiki's troubles and continued infrequent bursts of bubbles always aimed purposely around and under the Kuramon.

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I've never had to knock on wood, but I know someone who has. Which makes me wonder if I could. And nearly just as quickly as the seeds of caution had been planted so too were they undone - pretty much at the exact same moment that Izumi left the cover of the bushes behind her it became rather painfully clear that the ghost shaped thing on the ground wasn't a threat, or at least didn't intend to present itself as such. More than that, Jello didn't even seem to really care. Granted, the little bugger had outrun dogs and cats in the past with little trouble so she doubted she'd be easily caught or harmed, but even still the manner in which the critter had dodged the earlier attack was a bit too easy - as the second Digimon's expression changed and it began to purposefully miss the action that Izumi had been planning on seemed to be rather pointless. Obviously not a rogue Digimon even if it wasn't partnered with the kid, but that introduced yet another wrinkle into the overall encounter - an action once started was not so easily stopped, and any hope of Izumi getting out of there unseen to continue on her own way had pretty much vanished the moment that she had reached out to grab a handful of the kid's shirt from behind. The end result of attempting to stop the motion - namely of lifting the kid by his shirt like an unruly cat - was far less pretty than the intended result as physics instead came into play, gravity magnifying the motion to yank the kid onto his back. And yet, impossibly, the kid hadn't managed to notice her. Izumi was crouching probably less than a meter behind him, but rather than show any sign of having acknowledged her presence he simply sat back up, seemingly speaking to himself. Not something that boded well for him, and after the brief look of wide eyed shock and disbelief had passed over Izumi's face her expression slowly began to settle into one of contemplation. Simply put, there was no way in hell a kid like this had managed to survive on his own, or would continue to do so without help - more than his partner could provide at any rate, if anything he'd be taking care of it. So, where had he come from? There had to be other people around, somewhere nearby - it was the only logical explanation, but Izumi hadn't seen any signs of civilization since making landfall. A community outside of the walled cities? Plausible, but unlikely - the only reason the people on Aogashima hadn't left at the first sign of trouble was because they had no way to leave, and she doubted that people on the mainland would've exposed themselves to that kind of danger out of choice. More than that, though, there was the kid's arm - there was blood on it, something that she hadn't noticed from behind him before, and another far less pleasant bit of information that her sense of smell registered in spite of her desire not to be made aware of it. It wasn't exactly fresh, but it was recent. A wild animal? Digimon didn't leave wounded, not if they decided they wanted to cause you harm, although that only served to put her further on edge. Given how clueless the squirt was Izumi highly doubted he knew how to hide his trail, and if he had been leaking in more ways than one the entire way out into the woods there was nothing to say that whatever attacked him in the first place wouldn't simply show up to finish the job. That, and Izumi didn't particularly feel like sticking around if it meant he had left a trail - if a rogue Digimon did come across that it would lead them right to where she was standing right now. To be perfectly blunt staying there was not in her best interests, but as Izumi glanced up at Jello to see the hovering blob lazily rotating in place and blinking at the other Digimon, eye curious, all of the insight and logic that had led to that conclusion pretty much went right out the window. Damn my conscience. "Payback, mostly. You think I'm going to punt something the size of my head with no arms or legs for picking a fight with something that's not going to fight back?" Izumi said, answering a question already several moments old as she stood up and waited for the kid to finally notice her as the teen stared down at him. First thing to do, check and make sure he wasn't bleeding any more than he already had - a fresh trail wasn't going to do either of them any good, but more to the point..... "Where'd you come from? Far as I can tell there's no cities near us out here - I don't hear any cars or see any walls over the trees. What happened to your arm?" Sure, not the friendliest greeting, but Izumi wasn't really in the mood for pleasantries - as noted before, the presence of blood made her nervous for a number of different reasons, all of them very valid concerns in her mind. The sooner they got this sorted out and him either back home or on his way, the better. @tag

made by duet of gs

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A

quiet had settled over the air after Taiki's speech into the emptyness. And then the emptyness talked back. Taiki scrunched up his face in utter confusion. He checked both digimon's faces and felt sure it wasn't their speech.

"Are you.... are you my conscience?", he whispered to the emptyness, still oblivious to the trainer.

The emptyness continued to speak. And in a female voice, too. His conscience was a girl even though he was a boy? That couldn't be right... He decided he must have bumped his head too hard and checked again in front of him, and then behind him. Behind him stood a girl, finishing her speech.

He stared at her blankly for a few moments while his mind worked to catch up.

"But he didn't mean to hurt the digimon, he was just confused! He's only a baby! He only hatched a few days ago.", he defended the Poyomon, but didn't rush to pick it up or coddle it in protection. His head still felt a little woozy, so he took his chances sitting down. After all, the trainer had said she wouldn't kick the Poyomon.

"I - and I -...", he tried to catch up to the whirlwind of questions he'd been assaulted with, but merely floundered. " Shang and his friends came over to my house and asked if I could go to the beach with them real nice. But they're not nice! They're mean! But mom said I had to go so I could make friends since they came to my house to ask real nicely. So I had to go... Shang's mom drove us to the beach. But Shang wanted to have a digimon battle, like real trainers, only Shang didn't have a digimon, just his mean dog. Everyone in the neighborhood is scared of that dog and we had to ride with it to the beach. When Shang told his dog to attack us...", he had to pause to allow for a shiver. Taiki was afraid of dogs. He showed his arm and pointed to the poyomon, which was still content to blow bubbles and hum to the Kuramon, which didn't seem to interact much back. " So we ran here...."

" The road's up ahead, it goes from the beach to the city. But no one uses it very much, it's not the right season to go to the beach and with all the rogue digimon, no one goes out of the city much at all. My mom loves me, she just didn't know that Shang... She doesn't believe me. "

"Are you missing a digimon?", he asked, suddenly.

"Why are you out here, then? What's that thing called? Where are you going?", it was Taiki's turn for twenty questions, and he gestured towards Hiroko, Kuramon, and Hiroko, respectfully.

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I've never had to knock on wood, but I know someone who has. Which makes me wonder if I could. While normally not a quiet person, at least given her own memories from back when she actually had the opportunity to speak to people, Izumi would simply remain silent as the kid spoke, and the teenager couldn't help but feel one of two things - either that she was being lied to, or that her first impression of him was spot on. There was a LOT being said that made absolutely little to no sense here. The bullying thing ironically was one of the few things that actually did seem plausible - kids were stupid, and there was nothing more pure or cruel than a child looking for amusement, regardless of the fact that he was picking on someone that society would probably have his ass for given how valued Tamers were, at least the last Izumi had heard. Everything else, though.... Bluntly put, Izumi had just come from the beach not more than an hour or two ago, and had there been anyone there she would have seen them or likely crossed paths - she'd gone up and down that shoreline a few times looking for a good landing spot, but more than that it was a foolish risk and not one she could see a parent taking, much less one with multiple children. More than that, what the fuck was his mother thinking letting a Tamer outside of the city walls when he was more or less what the roaming Digimon were specifically looking for? It didn't make any sense, but to be perfectly honest, Izumi frankly didn't care. In the end there was only one bit of information out of it all that really caught her attention, and it was that which she would focus on. She frankly suspected that thinking too much about everything else that came out of his mouth would only result in a massive headache for her, so the best solution to that would be to just ignore it all. "Not exactly out here by choice, so how about this - we make a deal? You're not in the best shape and I don't see you making it back home on your own, and I have no real idea where I'm going. You show me that road and I'll get you back." Izumi replied, mulling the thought over for several long moments before speaking it aloud. Not exactly the best plan, but it would work.... hopefully. It'd get her what she wanted, likely get the kid what he needed and in a way that would keep her conscience from bugging her the entire hike to whatever city the kid came from, and even better yet hopefully earn her an easy ticket into the place. Kuramon, having begun to lose interest in the other Digimon, would simply begin to slowly float, bob and lazily tumble through the air back towards Izumi. @tag

made by duet of gs