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Character Application: [link]
Evolution Line: [link]

Part 1 (viewing) | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Thomas and Demidevimon made it to the next round, Let The Hunting Begin! I decided to write a little story for it and do some illustrations of the scenes. I also really wanted to try the technique they use in the anime, with cell-shaded characters but more painterly backgrounds. It's been a fun ongoing experiment

So here's Part 1, in which Thomas and Demidevimon find Skullsplashmon and try to play it smart against him.

STORY SNIPPIT:

Demidevimon was not impressed with the next task. Track a digimon in the woods? Fine. Steal or find an object? Not the battle tournament assignment he’d been hoping for, but okay, they could deal.

Steal a fang from an enormous digimon...while it was still attached to that digimon? Sounded more like a great way to get himself deleted more than a real test of skills. It was hardly fair, sending digimon that had just barely made Champion up against something like Skullsplashmon, after all. And that was if they even had made Champion. Demidevimon knew a lot of the other contestants had managed to evolve, but he hadn’t, and he wasn’t sure how to make it happen, either.

But although he grumbled and complained foully to Thomas the entire time about the newest assignment, and how this was nothing like the tournament he thought they were joining, and how these quests were stupid, he’d do it all the same. Because he knew Thomas wanted to, and they both wanted to prove they’d gotten much stronger since a year ago, when they first met. Thomas couldn’t fight something like Skullsplashmon at all, not without getting himself seriously hurt; humans were useless like that. So Demidevimon would just have to do it to make sure Thomas stayed safe, and Thomas would do the same for him in his own human way.

This partner thing wasn’t so bad, Demidevimon reflected for the hundredth time.

Fortunately, while the task called for tracking and stealing a fang, the first part wasn’t all that hard. “Just fly up and keep an eye out for him,” Thomas said. “We know he went to Freezeland based on the rumors we heard. You can spot him from the air.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Demidevimon grumbled, as he fluttered up from his comfortable perch on Thomas’ head and soared into the air. But it actually was just as easy as that. Demidevimon could fly pretty high if he pushed himself, and from way up in the air he could see a good portion of Freezeland sprawled out below him. Most of it was ice flows and frozen lakes and snow, with the occasional scattering of pine trees dusted with white after a recent storm. It made Skullsplashmon’s bright orange fish missile stand out like a sore thumb as he paced along through the thick snow about a mile north of Thomas, heading for a strand of pine trees and what looked like a cave.

Demidevimon soared back down and landed comfortably on Thomas’ head. As usual, his human didn’t complain at being a digi-perch, and merely said, “Spot him?” 

“Yeah, I saw him,” Demidevimon said. “He’s more north.” He gestured with a wing, and then added, “But are you gonna be okay here, Thomas? It’s cold. And you don’t have a coat or anything. Don’t you humans need things like that?”

“I’ll be fine,” Thomas said curtly. His arms were folded in front of his chest and he rubbed them occasionally to keep out the chill, but he didn’t complain about it once.

“Are you sure?” Demidevimon asked doubtfully. Even after spending a year with humans, and Thomas specifically, it was sometimes so hard to figure them out. His old bosses had gone on and on about how weak and worthless humans were, and how it’d be better off if they were all wiped out. Demidevimon knew enough now to know it wasn’t entirely true—humans could be quite tough in a pinch if they wanted to, like Thomas was doing now. But sometimes they just weren’t as hardy as digimon could be, and it could be very tricky to figure out what they needed. They were such annoying creatures, sometimes, but Demidevimon still wouldn’t trade Thomas for anything.

“I’m sure,” Thomas said. “This tournament is about testing us, right? There’s no way to get a coat now, so I’ll just have to suck it up and deal. If you can fight monsters, I can at least put up with being cold.”

He had a point, and Demidevimon knew better than to argue with Thomas when he’d made up his mind about something anyway. So he just ruffled his wings and said, “Fine, then, but don’t come crying to me when you get sick, ‘cause I’m not gonna spend all my time babying you when we’ve got a tournament to win. I’ll just do it all myself.”

“Sure,” Thomas said quietly, although Demidevimon knew him well enough by now to know his lips were quirked in a faint trace of a smile, even when he couldn’t see it.

Thomas walked them both through the snow for another forty-five minutes. Fortunately it wasn’t as deep as it had looked from above, and although his baggy pants were soaked at the hems after just a few minutes of walking, he wasn’t slowed down too badly overall. At last they neared a thick gathering of trees, and Demidevimon warned him to slow down, since Skullsplashmon was nearby now. Sure enough, they spotted the enormous digimon’s tracks in the snow a few minutes later, and followed them until they spotted it a short ways ahead of them, walking away.

They ducked behind a small gathering of brambles and pine trees—or rather, Thomas ducked and Demidevimon fluttered down to crouch on his knee instead—and watched the enemy digimon for a few moments. It was quiet. Neither human nor digimon saw any of the other contestants around, and it was impossible to tell if Skullsplashmon was missing any teeth, he had so many. He didn’t look injured either. If he’d encountered other human-digimon teams and fought them, he’d already recovered from the battles.

Demidevimon gulped. He didn’t like the thought of fighting something like that. A digimon that strong and dangerous looking was exactly the sort of digimon he’d been terrified of ever since he’d been a little Pagumon, and exactly the sort of digimon he ended up getting bullied into obeying as a mere minion. He knew he was much stronger than he had been a year ago, especially with Thomas’ help, but still, it was frightening to even consider going up against the same sort of digimon that had punished him mercilessly time and time again, or left him for deletion when they thought he was useless.

I guess this’ll just test how far I’ve come then, I guess, he thought, tightening his claws on Thomas’ knee. This time he wouldn’t be pushed around by a power-hungry digimon. Especially not with Thomas here to help.

His human was watching the Skullsplashmon carefully from their hidden location, considering their options. “We need to be careful about this,” he said after a moment. “He’s a lot bigger than I thought.”

“So I’ll just digivolve and we can kick his ass that way!” Demidevimon said hotly. He hoped it was true. He wasn’t sure what his Champion form was yet, but it had to be strong, right?

“Quiet,” Thomas admonished softly. Fortunately, Skullsplashmon hadn’t heard Demidevimon’s exclamation. After a moment the human added, “We can’t do that. I don’t even know how to make you digivolve. Do you?”

Demidevimon grudgingly admitted that he didn’t. “It has something to do with humans,” he muttered. “I just...figured you’d know. Y’know?”

“Well, I don’t,” Thomas said. “But if we’re smart about this we can still get a fang without even having to waste all that energy evolving you. You have a hypnotizing attack, right?”

“Yes,” Demidevimon said slowly. “But I’m just a Rookie, Tommy. There’s no way it’d work.”

Thomas shook his head. “We won’t know until we try. We’ve both trained a lot...it could work. At any rate, that has a better shot than attacking him outright. Just stay out of sight, and then swoop down at the last minute and get him before he can react. Once he’s down I’ll run out and grab a fang, and then we both get the hell out of here before he wakes up. Got it?”

“You got it,” Demidevimon said, fluttering into the air. Thomas sounded so confident about it. It could work. And he was right, they’d done a lot of training. He was a lot stronger than he had been a year ago. He could do this. They could win, and they wouldn’t even need him to go Champion. Yeah.

He flapped hard to get higher, and swooped carefully over the trees, circling above Skullsplashmon out of sight. He waited for Thomas to get a little closer into position, the better to steal a fang, and then folded his wings and dove.

For one moment he felt nothing but the thrilling and simultaneously frightening experience of dropping like a stone out of the air, straight towards a very large, very mean-looking digimon’s jaws. At the last moment he flared his bat wings wide and swooped to a stop right in front of the surprised-looking Skullsplashmon’s face. Demidevimon grinned to himself for a moment—he really had caught such a big, dangerous-looking digimon by surprise—but then his expression shifted to one of intense concentration as he activated his attack.

“Evil Whisper!” he murmured, and instantly his hypnotizing move triggered as he sent waves of sleep-inducing red rings outward from his own pupils. The color intensified as it hit Skullsplashmon, and the large digimon began to weave on its feet, eyes drooping sleepily as it began to succumb.

“It’s working!” Demidevimon crowed in delight, as the hypnotizing attack finished. “Hah! I really did it! It works!” Skullsplashmon was sinking down to the ground now, head nodding, and Thomas was already beginning to creep out from behind the big digimon to retrieve a fang. “Take that, you big ugly lug!”

Skullsplashmon’s nose touched the snow—and then his whole body lifted rigidly. He stood straight on four massive paws, bristling with spikes and fangs, and with a big, nasty grin and amused, narrowed eyes, he growled slowly, “Just kidding.”

Demidevimon © Bandai
Thomas Hadryn © ~VelkynKarma
Skullsplashmon © ~Rhydon

~VelkynKarma

Description

Character Application: [link]
Evolution Line: [link]

Part 1 (viewing) | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Thomas and Demidevimon made it to the next round, Let The Hunting Begin! I decided to write a little story for it and do some illustrations of the scenes. I also really wanted to try the technique they use in the anime, with cell-shaded characters but more painterly backgrounds. It's been a fun ongoing experiment

So here's Part 1, in which Thomas and Demidevimon find Skullsplashmon and try to play it smart against him.

STORY SNIPPIT:

Demidevimon was not impressed with the next task. Track a digimon in the woods? Fine. Steal or find an object? Not the battle tournament assignment he’d been hoping for, but okay, they could deal.

Steal a fang from an enormous digimon...while it was still attached to that digimon? Sounded more like a great way to get himself deleted more than a real test of skills. It was hardly fair, sending digimon that had just barely made Champion up against something like Skullsplashmon, after all. And that was if they even had made Champion. Demidevimon knew a lot of the other contestants had managed to evolve, but he hadn’t, and he wasn’t sure how to make it happen, either.

But although he grumbled and complained foully to Thomas the entire time about the newest assignment, and how this was nothing like the tournament he thought they were joining, and how these quests were stupid, he’d do it all the same. Because he knew Thomas wanted to, and they both wanted to prove they’d gotten much stronger since a year ago, when they first met. Thomas couldn’t fight something like Skullsplashmon at all, not without getting himself seriously hurt; humans were useless like that. So Demidevimon would just have to do it to make sure Thomas stayed safe, and Thomas would do the same for him in his own human way.

This partner thing wasn’t so bad, Demidevimon reflected for the hundredth time.

Fortunately, while the task called for tracking and stealing a fang, the first part wasn’t all that hard. “Just fly up and keep an eye out for him,” Thomas said. “We know he went to Freezeland based on the rumors we heard. You can spot him from the air.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Demidevimon grumbled, as he fluttered up from his comfortable perch on Thomas’ head and soared into the air. But it actually was just as easy as that. Demidevimon could fly pretty high if he pushed himself, and from way up in the air he could see a good portion of Freezeland sprawled out below him. Most of it was ice flows and frozen lakes and snow, with the occasional scattering of pine trees dusted with white after a recent storm. It made Skullsplashmon’s bright orange fish missile stand out like a sore thumb as he paced along through the thick snow about a mile north of Thomas, heading for a strand of pine trees and what looked like a cave.

Demidevimon soared back down and landed comfortably on Thomas’ head. As usual, his human didn’t complain at being a digi-perch, and merely said, “Spot him?” 

“Yeah, I saw him,” Demidevimon said. “He’s more north.” He gestured with a wing, and then added, “But are you gonna be okay here, Thomas? It’s cold. And you don’t have a coat or anything. Don’t you humans need things like that?”

“I’ll be fine,” Thomas said curtly. His arms were folded in front of his chest and he rubbed them occasionally to keep out the chill, but he didn’t complain about it once.

“Are you sure?” Demidevimon asked doubtfully. Even after spending a year with humans, and Thomas specifically, it was sometimes so hard to figure them out. His old bosses had gone on and on about how weak and worthless humans were, and how it’d be better off if they were all wiped out. Demidevimon knew enough now to know it wasn’t entirely true—humans could be quite tough in a pinch if they wanted to, like Thomas was doing now. But sometimes they just weren’t as hardy as digimon could be, and it could be very tricky to figure out what they needed. They were such annoying creatures, sometimes, but Demidevimon still wouldn’t trade Thomas for anything.

“I’m sure,” Thomas said. “This tournament is about testing us, right? There’s no way to get a coat now, so I’ll just have to suck it up and deal. If you can fight monsters, I can at least put up with being cold.”

He had a point, and Demidevimon knew better than to argue with Thomas when he’d made up his mind about something anyway. So he just ruffled his wings and said, “Fine, then, but don’t come crying to me when you get sick, ‘cause I’m not gonna spend all my time babying you when we’ve got a tournament to win. I’ll just do it all myself.”

“Sure,” Thomas said quietly, although Demidevimon knew him well enough by now to know his lips were quirked in a faint trace of a smile, even when he couldn’t see it.

Thomas walked them both through the snow for another forty-five minutes. Fortunately it wasn’t as deep as it had looked from above, and although his baggy pants were soaked at the hems after just a few minutes of walking, he wasn’t slowed down too badly overall. At last they neared a thick gathering of trees, and Demidevimon warned him to slow down, since Skullsplashmon was nearby now. Sure enough, they spotted the enormous digimon’s tracks in the snow a few minutes later, and followed them until they spotted it a short ways ahead of them, walking away.

They ducked behind a small gathering of brambles and pine trees—or rather, Thomas ducked and Demidevimon fluttered down to crouch on his knee instead—and watched the enemy digimon for a few moments. It was quiet. Neither human nor digimon saw any of the other contestants around, and it was impossible to tell if Skullsplashmon was missing any teeth, he had so many. He didn’t look injured either. If he’d encountered other human-digimon teams and fought them, he’d already recovered from the battles.

Demidevimon gulped. He didn’t like the thought of fighting something like that. A digimon that strong and dangerous looking was exactly the sort of digimon he’d been terrified of ever since he’d been a little Pagumon, and exactly the sort of digimon he ended up getting bullied into obeying as a mere minion. He knew he was much stronger than he had been a year ago, especially with Thomas’ help, but still, it was frightening to even consider going up against the same sort of digimon that had punished him mercilessly time and time again, or left him for deletion when they thought he was useless.

I guess this’ll just test how far I’ve come then, I guess, he thought, tightening his claws on Thomas’ knee. This time he wouldn’t be pushed around by a power-hungry digimon. Especially not with Thomas here to help.

His human was watching the Skullsplashmon carefully from their hidden location, considering their options. “We need to be careful about this,” he said after a moment. “He’s a lot bigger than I thought.”

“So I’ll just digivolve and we can kick his ass that way!” Demidevimon said hotly. He hoped it was true. He wasn’t sure what his Champion form was yet, but it had to be strong, right?

“Quiet,” Thomas admonished softly. Fortunately, Skullsplashmon hadn’t heard Demidevimon’s exclamation. After a moment the human added, “We can’t do that. I don’t even know how to make you digivolve. Do you?”

Demidevimon grudgingly admitted that he didn’t. “It has something to do with humans,” he muttered. “I just...figured you’d know. Y’know?”

“Well, I don’t,” Thomas said. “But if we’re smart about this we can still get a fang without even having to waste all that energy evolving you. You have a hypnotizing attack, right?”

“Yes,” Demidevimon said slowly. “But I’m just a Rookie, Tommy. There’s no way it’d work.”

Thomas shook his head. “We won’t know until we try. We’ve both trained a lot...it could work. At any rate, that has a better shot than attacking him outright. Just stay out of sight, and then swoop down at the last minute and get him before he can react. Once he’s down I’ll run out and grab a fang, and then we both get the hell out of here before he wakes up. Got it?”

“You got it,” Demidevimon said, fluttering into the air. Thomas sounded so confident about it. It could work. And he was right, they’d done a lot of training. He was a lot stronger than he had been a year ago. He could do this. They could win, and they wouldn’t even need him to go Champion. Yeah.

He flapped hard to get higher, and swooped carefully over the trees, circling above Skullsplashmon out of sight. He waited for Thomas to get a little closer into position, the better to steal a fang, and then folded his wings and dove.

For one moment he felt nothing but the thrilling and simultaneously frightening experience of dropping like a stone out of the air, straight towards a very large, very mean-looking digimon’s jaws. At the last moment he flared his bat wings wide and swooped to a stop right in front of the surprised-looking Skullsplashmon’s face. Demidevimon grinned to himself for a moment—he really had caught such a big, dangerous-looking digimon by surprise—but then his expression shifted to one of intense concentration as he activated his attack.

“Evil Whisper!” he murmured, and instantly his hypnotizing move triggered as he sent waves of sleep-inducing red rings outward from his own pupils. The color intensified as it hit Skullsplashmon, and the large digimon began to weave on its feet, eyes drooping sleepily as it began to succumb.

“It’s working!” Demidevimon crowed in delight, as the hypnotizing attack finished. “Hah! I really did it! It works!” Skullsplashmon was sinking down to the ground now, head nodding, and Thomas was already beginning to creep out from behind the big digimon to retrieve a fang. “Take that, you big ugly lug!”

Skullsplashmon’s nose touched the snow—and then his whole body lifted rigidly. He stood straight on four massive paws, bristling with spikes and fangs, and with a big, nasty grin and amused, narrowed eyes, he growled slowly, “Just kidding.”

Demidevimon © Bandai
Thomas Hadryn © ~VelkynKarma
Skullsplashmon © ~Rhydon

~VelkynKarma