Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shinjuku is a nice place for Digimon. Lots of space to hide in, a number of children who could make potential partners, and oblivious adults. Of course, not all Digimon have benevolent reasons for visiting the city from the Digital World.

Amongst them is IceDevimon. He is cold, cunning, and vicious. Okay, well, he says he’s cunning. Most take his word for it.

Cold and vicious, on the other hand, go unquestioned. Because instead of absorbing data for extra power, or letting it dissipate so the Digital World can reformat it into something new, he keeps his victims in blocks of ice. Victims that he can summon to his location in an instant, because Devimon type Digimon have some allotment of magical powers and he loves showing off his ‘collection’.

He leaves a swath of ice over the Digital World a mile wide, and it takes quite some time for that to change. Because a girl shows up on a Unimon, who he simply can’t defeat, and then a boy follows with an AeroVeedramon, and IceDevimon decides to get out of there, as far and fast as possible.

He isn’t meaning to end up in Shinjuku, really. It just happens. But he’s there now, and he decides to search for a Tamer.

There are a number of humans unattached to a Digimon- the majority, really. But he has his eye on a trio that are already Tamers.

Two of them have fire Digimon- a Coronamon and Flamemon- so going against them is probably suicide. And he recognizes that. The third one, the youngest, has a partner who generally sustains Champion Level, but it’s only a Mikemon, and he thinks he can take her in a fight.

He’s worrying about the wrong thing, really, but he has a plan, made with his intellect that he’s sure can’t fail.

(He is so very, very wrong.)

They’re going to have a sleepover. At Luffy’s place, because it’s the biggest and the adults living there already know about Digimon. The three of them are all prepared for the best night in a long time, likely curled up together in front of the television because a new movie came out that Sabo likes and Luffy is still as affectionate as ever. It’ll be great.

Ace pauses for a moment, and the other two turn to him. “What is it?” Sabo asks.

“Nothing. Just… doesn’t it feel cold, all of a sudden?” Luffy thinks on it, and admits that there is a bit of a chill compared to a minute ago. He then stops thinking, because it still makes his head hurt and he doesn’t like it.

“It’s not that bad,” Mikemon points out, her tail twitching the way it does whenever she’s annoyed with something. Luffy sees that a lot, though he’s not sure why. “Besides, we’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Except they’re not, because a card falls from Luffy’s pocket, and he chases it into an alley. One that’s a lot colder than it should be. He doesn’t notice until it’s too late, and Mikemon is desperately fighting IceDevimon so he doesn’t get taken- and losing, because Luffy can’t use Modify cards while frozen in place, Digivice dropped just a few feet away.

Ace and Sabo must have noticed he was taking longer than he should have, because that’s about when they show up.

“This is getting a bit crowded, isn’t it?” IceDevimon asks. “Let’s finish this somewhere a bit more private, shall we?” And with another burst of cold air, they’re no longer in that alley.

(Most would say that the Training Grips card wasn’t worth the trouble. But he’s a collector.)

Sabo has Luffy’s Digivice in hand, the tracking function already up and running. “He doesn’t seem to have gone very far,” He states, trying not to show any outward signs of panic.

“Then we can just go get him, right?” Coronamon asks. “How crispy do you want him?”

“Charcoal.” Is Ace’s reply, and that really shouldn’t surprise any of them.

Honestly, Sabo’s excited at the possibility of so much fire, which he should probably take as a warning sign, if not for the fact that an IceDevimon just kidnapped his little brother. Rescue first, worrying about his mental state later. Likely after at least one case of arson.

They haven’t burned down any buildings yet, but all things considered, it’s really only a matter of time. Might as well do it now, right? ...Okay, he is definitely having an episode right now. At least, all things considered, it’s really not a bad time for it.

Really, if he and Flamemon don’t light anything on fire, Ace and Coronamon will. Which reminds him that he never actually told his brothers about his little… fire issues.

He probably should. But there are more important things to worry about right now.

“Do you think anyone else will be there, this time of evening?” Flamemon asks. And it’s always Flamemon who asks, because while the other two Tamed Digimon never ran into each other, they’ve roamed this city for well over a year now.

“Probably not,” Mikemon said, clearly trying to keep the pain out of her voice, and failing miserably.

They’re all willing to burn down the world for Luffy’s sake, sometimes a bit more literally than others. And doing it literally is entirely possible, because they have Flamemon and Coronamon, and a couple of kids who used to regularly set themselves on fire. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.

(Well, they never end up lighting the whole world on fire. But sometimes, they come pretty close.)

Ace does, in fact have a plan. Get in, get Luffy, turn IceDevimon into charcoal, possibly burn the place down behind them, sleepover. It’s not the most detailed of plans, but he’s found that anything involving Luffy even peripherally cannot be a detailed plan, else it will be doomed to failure.

Stepping inside, he changes ‘possibly’ to ‘definitely’ because it’s far too cold for anyone to deal with. When he voices this to Sabo, however, his brother just laughs. Says he doesn’t have any cold tolerance.

Which is actually a good point. But he’s never needed cold tolerance before, shouldn’t be needing it now, if not for the fact that they forgot trouble follows Luffy around everywhere. Honestly, the worst part is that Mikemon’s the only other one shivering, though he tries to excuse that because Sabo is right between Flamemon and Coronamon right now, so of course he’s warm.

“So, how do we do this?” Flamemon asks. “Do we start lighting things up now, or…?”

“Let’s wait until we have my partner back,” Mikemon suggests. “Or at least leave an escape route open.” She’s still favoring one paw, but she’s recovered quickly, if only due to the earlier fight being interrupted. She’ll be fine.

It’s a large building, and the elevator doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t. No Digimon would hole up someplace that wasn’t abandoned, or at least their Tamer’s home. Calumon doesn’t factor into this. Nami practically is his Tamer.

They end up starting the fire a bit sooner than he’d meant to, at about the time they find the ice cubes filled with frozen Digimon. All Sabo’s fault, and Ace is sort of concerned by the look on his face. But they still have the situation more or less under control, and IceDevimon is just a floor away, so he lets it slide.

(He shouldn’t have, but nobody ever said he had a lot of common sense.)

In hindsight, the whole arson thing was maybe not the best idea. And Sabo understands that he’s only realizing this now because somewhere in the past few minutes he’s flipped the switch from ‘manic’ to ‘phobic’ and it’s all he can do to keep himself from freaking out.

Given that he ordered Flamemon to set the fire in the first place, he’s willing to admit that it’s really his fault, but they’ve already found Luffy, so they’re done with the worst part of the night.

Mikemon launches herself at IceDevimon, followed closely by Firamon and Agunimon, because they are not taking any chances right now. It’s probably a little overkill, but Ace and Sabo agree that there is no such thing as overkill in this situation. He took their little brother. He should be prepared to deal with the consequences.

Of course, even with that dealt with, there are still a few loose ends to tie up. Mikemon can probably handle getting through the fire well enough, but Luffy’s exhausted and half-frozen. He didn’t even think it was possible to hate his occasional lapses in impulse control this much.

Sabo reminds himself that hyperventilating really won’t do him any good right now, and focuses on the rather satisfying sight of IceDevimon exploding into data, which is left to vanish into nothingness out of spite more than anything. But that’s gone all too quickly, leaving just three humans, one of which is far too cold, their Digimon, and a burning building.

“Are you all right?” Agunimon asks, which means that his fear is noticeable at that’s the last thing he wants right now.

“I-I will be,” Is what he settles for, because anything more would be a lie, and he doesn’t want to worry them with anything else. Not right now. “Once we get out of here.” Once there’s no longer so much fire, and Luffy’s no longer at risk of frostbite.

“Right.” Ace takes charge, because he’s the only one in anything nearing fit shape to. In fact, he doesn’t even seem to care about the flames that are slowly growing around them. “Lu, would you like to ride Firamon for a bit?”

“But you never let anyone ride Firamon,” Luffy mumbles, still clearly out of it, and Sabo wishes they would just hurry up before the fire spreads any further.

“He’s making an exception. Come on, it’ll be fine,” He encourages, still trying to ignore the little voice in his head yelling at him to panic. “And then we can go and have that sleepover, okay?” Yes. A sleepover. That thing that is going to happen.

“Sabo.” Ace’s voice gives him something to focus on, so he does that. His episodes have never been quite this bad before… but he’s never actually been in a burning building during one, either. That probably explains it.

That’s also when he realizes he’s worse than Luffy at the moment, as their baby brother has already scooped up Mikemon, retrieved his Digivice, and climbed onto Firamon’s back, all without him noticing. Which is impressive considering that he’d been holding the Digivice. “I’m fine, really. Let’s go.”

It’s clear his brother doesn’t believe him, but he never really expected him to. He’s sort of a mess at the moment. But Ace just turns and sends Firamon ahead, before starting to pick his own way through the safe spots.

Sabo follows, tries to concentrate on stepping exactly where the other does, and to pretend that the fire isn’t there. It works up until he almost trips, and while he doesn’t fall, it’s enough to immobilize him halfway through.

He’s not sure what makes Ace turn around and grab his hand, but he’s glad for it, because that snaps him out of it and he’s able to think clearly for the first time since Luffy was taken.

It’s the worst episode he’s ever had, but at least it’s over, and he can focus on getting out, Agunimon right behind him, Ace pulling him ahead.

It also comes to mind that he’s promised Koala, several times, not to burn down Shinjuku. She’s going to give him hell for this once she finds out, for sure.

At least he’s still got that movie to look forward to.

Luffy falls asleep in the middle of the movie, curled up between the two of them. Neither of them feel any real need to move at the moment, but Ace supposes Luffy being asleep means that he should probably talk to Sabo about what happened earlier, and he does once the credits start rolling.

The answer he gets back is almost bitter. “We’re not fireproof anymore, Ace.” Which, yes, he knows this. It’s sort of hard not to notice that you can’t randomly burst into flame, especially after actually having that ability.

“Please tell me you haven’t just figured that out.” They are eleven- well okay, Sabo’s still not quite there yet- it should be a well-established fact.

Ace ignores the little voice that reminds him that he sometimes still forgets that, even if it hasn’t led to him having a panic attack in the middle of a dangerous situation. He’s a pirate. He’s allowed a bit of hypocrisy.

“Well, no, but- did you know it’s apparently possible to suffer from pyromania and pyrophobia at the same time?” Ouch. That would do it.

“How is that even a thing? You used to be made of fire!” He tries to be quiet, so they don’t wake Luffy, because while their little brother does probably need to know this, it can wait until morning.

It’s not hard. He has difficulty imagining Sabo wielding his flames, despite the fact that everyone else agrees it actually happened. His brother just doesn’t seem the type. Until one of them is threatened, of course, and then Ace can see it quite clearly.

Sabo just shrugs and mutters something about how immersion therapy doesn’t actually work that way and maybe he ended up making things worse for himself.

“Well, yeah, you ate a fire Devil Fruit while you were scared of fire. What did you think would happen?” Yet again ignoring the little voice in his head that always calls him out on his hypocrisy. Oddly enough, it sounds a bit like Marco.

Besides, he doesn’t have the same issues that Sabo does, so he doesn’t think it really matters. He doesn’t even want to imagine what it would be like if he were any more messed up.

“Sentimentality drives me to do the craziest things sometimes. Why would my choice in fruit be any different?” It’s an actual smile that Ace receives this time.

“You’re the biggest sap I’ve ever met.” He says it as if he’s just realizing it, but he’s accepted a long time ago that they were never as tough as they pretended to be.

“Maybe,” Sabo agrees, before reaching across the couch to poke Ace in the arm, right where his tattoo used to be, “But at least I’m a sap who can spell his own name.”

He’s probably going to get in trouble for punching his brother in the nose, but he thinks it’s entirely worth it.

She doesn’t leave until all of the humans are asleep.

She doesn’t want to go. Not really. This house, these people, have given her more happiness than anything else. But it’s not her purpose to seek happiness. She’s meant to grow stronger.

More than that, she’s meant to protect her partner, so they can keep working together. Something she failed to do tonight. And while she knows her Tamer will forgive her, if she can’t even keep him safe, than she doesn’t deserve to be the Pirate King’s Digimon.

Mikemon looks back one more time, before turning away and vanishing into the night.