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THE GUARDIANS SHADOW

Part 2 Chapter 1

The ride to Nevada was probably going to take at least two days to get from Washington state to Vegas and that would give me the time I needed to look over everything that I'd learned over the time that this corrupted Renamon, (That had its arms wrapped around my middle) had come into my life and thrown it for a loop. One thing was for sure though; the days to come were probably never going to be the same as my old Hunter days again.

Several years ago, an overly large Graymon had attacked my family and I was the sole survivor. The only thing I remember about the event was the Graymon and the cross shaped scar over its heart. A little while passed and the thoughts of suicide kept passing through my head, but when a rogue Digimon had attacked a young girl that was running for her life, my whole perspective on life changed in that instant. When I'd killed the Digimon to save the girl, she mentioned in thanks that I'd resembled that of the Hunters who often could be found policing Digimon and dealing out justice to those that went rouge. Taking the girl up on the information, I'd sought out the Hunters and shortly after became one of their numbers. For years I'd travel the US, hunting down those rogue Digimon that sought after humans to either do harm, use as food, or just plain slap us all into slavery. Though through all those earlier years, I searched for that one monster that had killed my family.

Years later I finally was doing a job for Government, as a Mercenary to clear out rogue Digimon in the area, when I'd been informed about a rogue Graymon terrorizing the area not far from where they'd first sent me. Agreeing to exterminate it, I was on the hunt. To my amazement I found that the Graymon was currently in the middle of a battle with another Digimon, a dark fox like Digimon. After watching the battle for a while I noticed that the Graymon had a scar over its heart and realized that that Graymon was the one that'd killed my family. So taking steps into my own hands I killed the overly large T-Rex; inadvertently saving the Digital fox in the process. Little had I known that in doing so, I'd wounded the fox's pride and shortly after had become its tamer.

To this day I'd never been able to live down the horror of being a tamer to one of the very things I hunted for a living. Though I didn't have time to face it down when I'd been sent on my first hunt with, regrettably, new partner. When we arrived at the scene, we found that the Digimon that we were to battle would be that of a Dokugumon, an overly large arachnid, it proved to be one of the worst hunts that I'd ever been on. In order for her to try and get a small portion of repentance for what I'd done to her ruined pride, she ruined the plan to kill the overly large spider, then to add insult to injury she came up with the plan that actually worked to kill the Dokugumon.

The next hunt was just about as bad as we went up against a Beelzemon and his female tamer. When the hunt had almost come to a close did we find out that there was someone out there hunting down the Hunters. Could this person who was intent on wiping out my fellow compatriots, be a danger to the Hunters? Had this person sent others to find other members of our organization and kill them like what had almost happened to me? I had to get in touch with the leader of the Hunters and find out what they knew about this and if, Heaven forbid, I'd find that my fears were based in truth.

(At present)

Sitting on the edge of the bed I looked down at the phone on the nightstand and debating with myself as to pick it up and call the rest of the Hunters and inform them of the information about my last hunt. Then sun had set over the town where we were staying, some time ago and there was still no sign of the damned digital-fox, though knowing her she was probably just hiding in the shadows of the room to just leap out and give me a scare, or worse yet interrupt my call to the other Hunters, to alert them of a possible threat. Giving up on the phone call I got up, stretched, and then headed towards the door. "Does your kind hunt for your own food?" I asked the air without turning around to see if there was anyone actually there to answer my question.

"How rude! We do not hunt down our own food like some kind of animal. We...HAY! Come back here hunter!" She yelled as I opened the door, stepped out of our hotel room, and closed the door behind me.

I'd only made it half way across the street before I felt something malicious heading towards me. Quickly ducking down a brief buff of wind passed right overhead and I looked to see the Black Renamon skid to stop a little ways in front of me. During her skid she slowly spun around and brandished her claws at me and made to act as if she were about ready to try again. "There's a Denny's across the road. We'll eat there." I said as I stood back up and pointed just behind her. Ever so slowly she turned her head to the side, so that she still kept an eye on me, and looked over her shoulder. The bright sign of the Denny's was lit up like that of a small beacon to that of road way drivers and glowed warmly to persuade others to come in and eat. "They are probably the first restaurant to allow Digital 'pets' to come and eat at their establishment." I said the word pet in such a slow/drawn-out way that the Digital-fox growled deeply in her throat.

A few minutes later found the two of us, sitting in a booth facing one another, giving each other hard looks that looked to any on-looker as if there was going to be a fight in next few seconds. "You should be thankful that I'm even going to pay for your food, you..." A deep growl interrupted me, warning me that if I continued with that sentence that there would be consequences.

"If you even think to tell me that I'm going to have to hunt for my meals in the future, I'm going to leave you a little something extra on your pillow when you wake up every morning." She said in a bit of menacing tone that left little to imagination that it'd be something that nobody would want to wake up to. A brief image of one of the pranks we played on one of the new hires back when I was a hunter. We took a moose head and lay it next to one of the trainees and watched his reaction to it when he awoke the next day. Knowing this Dark Renamon she'd probably do something similar to that or maybe leave some gizzards instead.

It was at that moment that I felt someone next to us and looked up to find the waitress standing there with two plates upon her hands. The girl looked like she'd seen something frightening as she looked to be shaking all over and the threat of dropping the plates in either hand looked like a distinct possibility. Not wanting to have our meals spilled all over our laps, I gestured for her to put the plates down before that or something worse happened. Once she'd set down the plates I watched as she quickly retreated, thought tried to hide it as a swift walk, towards the kitchens in the back of the place. I could only smirk at her fright and remembered that when I'd been a solo Hunter that that was the usual reaction that I'd get when I came into place such as these. 'It's good to know that at least some things haven't changed since I'd gotten partnered with a Digital Monster.'

"I didn't order this." The black Renamon said which drew me back to look across the table at her, then down at her dish.

"Of course you didn't. That's mine." I then reached across the table, took my plate in my one hand, then threw hers back in front of her. Thankfully none of her chicken had come loose or any of it splattering over her furry front. "That's yours." I could hear her growl deeply at me again, but I paid her no mind as I set in to eat my pasta. After a time I still hadn't heard her dig into her meal and looked up to see what her problem was, only to smirk a bit when she was trying to use the fork to cut her chicken breast and failing miserably at it. 'I guess she doesn't know how to use those kinds of utensils.

So with a small exhale through my nose I took her plate from her, with a bit of growl from her, then cut up her chicken with my knife, then returned her plait to her. I only caught the look of confusion on her face for the briefest of moments before she quickly turned to look down upon her chicken, and then stared at it for quite a while. I just shrugged my shoulders at that, and then returned to my own meal. I didn't notice her look up at me a moment later and give me a bit of a confused look with a twinge of gratitude.

Early the next day found us on the road again, heading south into Nevada, though through the miles crossed I came to realize that the Dark Renamon was becoming a bit uncomfortable. It wasn't until we stopped off at a local rest stop that I really got to see what was bothering her, to which I had to smack my head with the heel of my palm at not realizing the reason sooner. 'Of course she's uncomfortable in all that black fur of hers. Ever since we've crossed into some of the more southern states, the weathers been getting steadily warmer.' I choked up the reason why we both weren't in the same discomfort was due to the fact that I'd put my new leather jacket into one of the saddlebags on the new bike. 'Not to mention that it's probably going to get even warmer, due to the fact that we're heading into a desert and it's going to be spring there at the time of our arrival.' I walked over to her and gazed at her for a moment. I could see that her fur was glistening slightly in the early morning light and looked almost...appealing with it shiny like that. 'I wonder if she's ever heard of a pool.' I wondered for more than one reason, but quickly had to shake that thought off. Quickly walking over to one of the saddle bags on my bike, I flip open the clasp and yanked out a couple of waters, then threw one to the vixen. She caught the thing out of the air and gave me a strange look, as if wondering what she was supposed to do with the plastic container.

"It's probably going to get a bit warmer as we head further South, so I suggest that you drink that before you pass out on me from dehydration." I said to her in an uncaring kind of tone, as it really didn't matter that much to me if she did pass out or not. With that said I unscrewed the top to my own bottle of water and drank down a quarter of it before looking back at her. It seemed that she was having a bit of difficulty with the small twist top and was getting more and more frustrated with by the second. So taking the bottle out of her hands I quickly undid the top and handed it back to her. She accepted the bottle with a little uncertainty, but as the bottle touched her claws she quickly snatched it out my hands and took a quick swig while making sure to not lose sight of anything that I might do.

After I'd finished off half of my drink did I look back at her and see that she'd finished off all of hers. "You should've saved some of that." I said as I reached out for it only to have her horde it away as if it were something special. This caused me to laugh a little bit at, but when she seemed to get a little irritated at me, I reached into the same bag and pulled out another. "Don't down this one as fast as your last. We've still a long ways away from our destination." She just growled at me, as if telling her what to do was something I shouldn't have done, only to snatch the new bottle out of my hands and hug it tight to her chest.

I just shook my head as I turned towards the Rest Area proper and then headed off to the restroom. "And where do you think you're going Hunter?" She asked as if she needed to know where I was going.

"For your information, I'm just heading over to use the..." I then stopped in mid-sentence as I thought about what I was about to say and then shook it off. "You don't need to know where I'm at, at all hours of the day." I said to her as I slowly sighed to myself. "It's not like I'm really going that far anyways." To which to accent the point I simply just pointed towards the restrooms. She didn't seem to understand what I was saying as she cocked her head to the side a bit, but by the way that she was looking at me with that look left me a little concerned. 'I really hope that her curiosity doesn't get the better of her and come on over to see what I'm doing in there.' A mental image of her pulling open a portion of the roof to peer down at me as I'd be taking a leak would definitely not be something to look forward too. "Just stay by the bike and I'll be back in a minute or two."

She seemed to understand that at least, but I hoped that she'd actually listen to me this one time. Though as I got to a stall and undid my fly, I was constantly looking about to make sure that she was doing what she was told and not peeking in on me as I did my business. A few minutes later I walked out of the place, with a few more bottles of water, and found her looking towards that of some kids battling one another near the grassy area of the Rest Area. I walked over and stood next to her and watched them going at it. The first youth had what appeared to be an Agumon while the second had a Gabumon. Each one of the boys would call out an attack while the other would call out a counter or defense, but throughout it all neither really looked like they wanted a true battle with the other.

"Why do they not go for the kill?" She asked as she kept her gaze on the fight, watching as one would launch an attack and any other fine detail.

My first response was to tell her that not all battles were meant to be to the death or deletion, but I quickly bit that down and shook my head. "What does it matter? The fight doesn't really concern you or me." She turned to look at me out of the corner of her eye then turned to look back at the battle. "We have our own battle coming up fairly soon and we need to focus on that." Though I'd just tried to act all tough and all, but I still looked on their battle for a while. 'Would I have been like that if things had been different when I was younger?' I looked at each of the young boys and could see the look of happiness on their faces as well as their Digimon as they battle one another. "Come on, it's time we get back on the road again."

With that, I threw my leg over the side of the bike and started it up. The Dark Renamon watched the battle for a while longer, watching in confusion as later on the two boys called their Digimon off, only to go forward to the other to shake hands. "To strange." She said as she finally walked back over to me, got on the bike and the two of us sped off towards our destination.