From Sands to Ashes

[Miashin]

The group that wandered into the remains of the desacrated vilage out of the Security Desert was a sorry sight indeed. Adult digimon, those few who had managed to retain their forms, carried heavy loads of injured Children. Those few Child digimon who had either de-evolved from exhaustion, or had been Children to start off with, and were in good enough health also carried the injured on their backs. Merukimon himself carried a precious load of a certain pair of humans, a gazimon, and a gabumon.

Most of the digimon that arrived in the village were ready to drop from exhaustion, although Merukimon pushed them long enough that priority was given to the most injured as far as taking advantage of what little shelter the ruined buildings around them gave. So close to the desert, night settled atop of them fast and terribly cold causing many of the canine digimon to come together into small tightly clumped groups to preserve their heat. The BAN-TYO digimon, who had made it this far, were having a bit of a harder time, lacking the sense of comradery between each other for such efforts, and few of the canine digimon willing to put aside prior enmity for the sake of comfort. Merukimon himself as too weary to force them to get along at this point.

Though, in the abysmal march there had been one tiny bit of hope and joy. Surprisingly a few of the Child plant and Baby digimon that had been sent out of Rotem had survived the storm and they had gladly been picked up by the group in their march. Gladly, anyway, by the canines.

Merukimon settled down with a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl. Placing his precious cargo within the gutted and roofless remains of a longhouse while he himself sat cross-legged beside the building, too large for any of the ruined structures in the former village to accommodate him.

It was going to be a long night.

[Kiara Lycro]

By the time Frio finally approached Degare Village, a small froth was boiling out of the corners of his muzzle. His sides were throughly wet, making the ride uncomfortable for his passengers. Thankfully, the supplies were protected and secure.

"We're here." Firo groaned as they finally saw the village in sight. Lydia looked up hestiently, the sixteen hour ride had been more then enough time for her imagination to run wild. The scene was almost a relieve. Wounded digimon were being comforted and warmed, by those who were healthy.

Resting beside a destroyed long house was Mercuimon. Lydia had heard tales of him, but had never had the previlage of even seeing him before. Frio seemed to take strength from the magnificant sight, even though it was appearent he had just come from battle.

"That is Mercuimon, one of the most powerful digimon you'll meet in the digital world, besides the soverigns. Be respectful, and if he asks you to do something, you do it." Lydia warned Barty, though she was sure that his digimon would be able to fill him in on this just as well as she could. At least she hoped they would make him keep his manners.

Frio slowed as he entered into camp, his breathing was most likely enough to wake the canines in the group. Just as a reassurance, Lydia held up her digivice. Most often, the D-01s would at least tell the digimon that she wasn't from DATS.

They stopped in the middle of the desegrated village. Poor Frio stood on shaking legs as his passengers slid off his back, dragging the supplies along with them. Frio swiftly dedigivolved, exhausted from the pounding ride.

Lydia stood in front of Merucimon as she begun talking. "We recieved a text for help, we brought medical supplies from the puff village." Her attempt to keep her voice strong actually suceeded as she gestured to the crates. "It looks like you'll need it."

[lost]

((I'm crap, I know. >_< I'm sorry, I really am. My brain has fizzled in the last couple of... well... weeks. But here is my post))

Barty all but ignored Lydia and her words and even seemed to ignore Merukimon. Why should he, after all, respect someone he didn't know? It was absurd, dillusional. He didn't even respect his body, let alone a complete stranger!

Instead, he walked, a bit jelly legged, through the sand to examine the injured and the broken. There were so many that it even made his bones ache. He could feel a bit of shifting in his coat and quickly he looked down to see that Nymph was crawling out.

She shivered in the chilly air, wrapping her gloved claws around her body. Her green eyes shown in the desert moonlight and as the thief watched them, his heart skipped a beat. She had the most devious eyes he'd ever seen...

"You should take the the wood from the crates and burn them."

Galen's voice wheezed out before he fell from his tamer's pocket into the soft sand. A grunt before he pulled free of the gritty confines and spluttered.

Nymphadora took up his explanation.

"You twits won't last the night without one... You'll all freeze into digieggs."

Her words were gruff and carefully she snapped her fingers. A black flame, blazingly warm, came to life on her palm and she moved over to the closest group to dig out a tiny crater. There, she deposited the flame, allowing it to hover just over the ground.

"I can do this but I can't make them very big. The crates would make a bigger and warmer fire."

[Miashin]

Frio's approach was heard, a few of the digimon did tense as he entered the camp, but most were too weary to do more then that unless he proved himself a threat. Only Merukimon began to wearily stand to approach the possible threat, until Lydia held up her digivice. At the sight of this Merukimon settled back down with a relieved sigh and waited for the small group to approach him.

As they approached he noted the weary steps of the Garurumon and thought, somewhat morbidly, that this lupine would fit in quite well with his own exhausted army. He was glad to see the load of supplies that the canine carried, though even spread thinly they'd only barely cover a part of the armies needs. Well, no use worrying about that, they'd just have to make do with whatever there was.

The Garurumon de-evolved once the humans and gear had been unloaded. Merukimon might have felt bad for the, now child, digimon's struggle if he wasn't surrounded by equal of worse misery on all sides. He nodded gratefully at Lydias introduction and offer of help, though. "Yes we do. What all have you brought, and.. who are you precisely?" Even as he asked, he was looking over the digimon now under his care, writing up a mental list of all the needs and which were of greater or lesser importance.

Meanwhile, Nymphadora's very true advice was not getting much of a response. The digimon she was speaking too were all far too weary to do much about their situation without some stronger prompting. If she had come in right as they were arriving she would have had no problem in getting them to move. But now that they'd all settled down, and their muscles finally gotten a chance to start aching and paining none were all that eager to get up, even for a comfort as vital and simple as warmth.

[Kiara Lycro]

Even though the Mega digimon was obviously weary from battle, Lydia got a little awed just talking to him. "uh, My name is Lydia Alcocini." She turned her head as she gestured towards her compains. This is my partner Frio and this is Barty with his two partners Nypmh and Galen." As she finished with the quick introductions, she turned back to Muricumon.

"We did not know the exact situation so we brought basic treatments. There are bandages, disinfectant, pain medicine, and some needles and thread if there are some really major wounds. I don't think we have enough to help everyone though..." Lydia sad regretfully as she gazed over the massive amount of wounded. "I have some medicine specific to humans if there were any involved, but it doesn't like we'll be needing it. Where would you like us to start, sir?" She finished while gazing up at the Mega's masked face.

While Lydia talked with Merucimon, Frio had begun to help Nymph. Since he had a partner, he tended to heal a little faster then other digimon, and all he had been doing was running. When he saw how little reaction Nymph was getting from the digimon he floated up in the air to scope the situation.

"Listen everyone, I know a lot of you are hurt badly, but if we don't get a fire going we can't warm up your musles, or boil water to clean out some of the wounds I know you guys have. There are a lot of broken buildings near by, Nymph will get everything started with whoever else can help her. The rest of us will gather the wood. It will only take a few minutes if you can just get up!" Frio shouted and moved towards the nearest building to get started.

[lost]

Barty was already piling wood underneath the tiny flame that Nymph had started earlier. Carefully he stoked it until it was red and burning brightly, thrusting warm air out around it and splintering the wood to ash. Embers curled up over the top of the flames and floated away like little fairies before quickly flickering out and floating to the ground as nothing but charred ash.

The theif watched it for a quiet moment, enjoying the warm sight and the blazing colors. Finally, after his eyes began to sting, he looked away and began to help make more piles of wood. Nymph grinned and began to assist him with the wood, firing off black flames at every completed pile of wood.

Galen seemed to be busying himself at checking on the smaller rookies and even carrying some closer to the flames. "We'll do our best to help, Mr. Mercurimon, sir!"he said brightly, working his hardest,"Anything you need us to do and we'll do it!!"

[Miashin]

Prompted by the the fires that Barty and Nymph were building, Frio's words, and Galens help to those that most needed it, the canine digimon slowly came to life. For the most part they did as Galen was doing, bring those that needed it most critically closer to the flames. A few did help set the wood and start the fires, and before long there were quite a few glowing areas of warmth scattered throughout the group. However, the few BAN-TYO digimon that remained, stayed away from these glows, growling when any digimon that wished to help came near. No one felt like starting a fight now though, so they were mostly left alone as the canine's had no will the help the unwilling.

Merukimon lowered a hand to stop Lydia from approaching the building she was heading for and to get her attention, slowly of course since he didn't wish to appear threatening. "Actually we do have some humans." He gestured with the hand at the building beside him. "Please treat them with the medicines you brought." It wasn't obvious but it certainly cost him a lot to ask for the humans to be treated before the wounds of his own canines.

[Kiara Lycro]

A small sigh escaped Frio's unseen lips as the canines began to assist their brothern towards the fires. Though his body longed to curl up with them next to the fires, he knew there were many worse off then him to tend. He silently drifted towards the medical supplies, grabbed some antiseptics and floated towards a battered looking labormon.

Lydia nodded thoughfully in response to Merukimon's request. It was proabably better not to point out the many injured digimon surrounding them, some of the stories Lydia had heard about this mega digimon made it clear that this comment was difficult for him even if he was too weary to show it. "I'll just grab some medicine."

The Italian ran through the crowd of wounded digimon to stuff her backpack with a few sutrues, creams, bandages, and a few of the precious medicines. On an after thought Lydia gathered what bits of the grates were left and a torch. She returned to the building, looked at Merukimon for a second, and entered into the collapsing building.

When her light shown down on the four wounded figures she had to fight back a gasp. On the floor was a battered looking gabumon, a young female whose digivice proved her to be a spirit tamer, and wonders of wonders, the "leader" of rouge tamer's everywhere. This was turning into some day.

Lydia quickly build up the fire and pulled a bottle of water from her bag along with a rag. Despite the trama both digimon had obviously sustained their de-digivolution had taken care of most of their wounds, so Lydia started on the tamers. Unbaised, she cleaned the worst wounds on both tamer's before settling by Torage to finish her ministrations, and to wait for him to wake up so she could work on some of the more painful procedures without worrying about unplanned movements.