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THE GUARDIANS SHADOW

Part 2 Chapter 2

We stopped off a little north of Nevada and got a room for the night, though as we did the Dark Renamon couldn't help but question or make a comment to that decision. "There are still several hours left before the sun sets." She said in a snobbish tone that made it sound as if I really hadn't noticed the fact and we should be doing something with the rest of the daylight.

I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head as the person behind the counter of the inn punched in some information then turned to look up at me. "Are you and your Digimon going to be sharing a room together?" To which I nodded to the guy.

"Unfortunately." I said reluctantly as it was quickly followed by her hand slapping me up the backside of my head. Though as I turned to give her a piece of my mind, her facial features left me to believe that if I did say something that I'd soon regret it. Growling under my breath at her a bit, I snatched the key out of the guys hand and we headed off to our room.

After a quick shower and such, I walked into the main room and pulled back the covers. Though before I could put a leg in I noticed that the Dark Renamon standing there by the door. "We just got in and you're already going to bed? What is wrong with you Hunter?"

I looked towards the ceiling in defeat and then shook my head. "Maybe I have a reason for this, maybe I'm looking ahead, and maybe I want to be ready for tomorrow." I then leveled my gaze with her and scowled at her. "If you want to go running about or something, there's the door, I'm not stopping you." This time she showed me her teeth as well as growled at me, only to fade away into the shadows, and disappear from the room.

'She's going to learn the hard way the reason why I'm going to bed early tonight.' I thought to myself as I set my phone to vibrate under my pillow then went to sleep. I was awoken sometime in the night to the feeling of Renamon returning but decided not to mention anything as I still had an early day that next day. The next time I awoke was to that of my pillow vibrating from the phone I'd stuffed under it to silently awaken me in the morning. Looking over to the other bed I could see the dark outline of the dark Renamon asleep upon the sheets and knew that she was still asleep. So being as quiet as possible I went into the bathroom and returned with a cup of water as well as a wet wash cloth. 'You're going to learn one of these days, you damn animal, not to mess with me.'

I stopped just beside her bed, lifted up my arm with the glass of water and smiled evilly down upon her as I quickly upturned the whole cup onto her. She awoke with such a start that I could've sworn that she jumped a good foot in the air. "What the hell!?" Were her only words as she quickly began to scan around the room for the soon to dead person to awaken her in such a fashion. Though before she could get her feet under her for the lunge, when she saw me with the empty glass of water, a large washcloth hit her squarely in the face.

"Clean your-self up. It's time to get on the road." She reached up; slowly drug the wet cloth down her long pointed face, then gave me the death look. I only had two fractions of a second to react to her most recent humiliation. The first, I could've sworn I saw something else in her eyes (Is that mischief?), though the following moment was followed by her lunge at me. For the next few moments it was a bit touch and go as we grappled there on the floor, until I finally was able to get my feet under her, and then promptly kicked her off of me and into the far wall.

It took her a little bit of time to get to her feet, but as she got one leg under her to a kneeling position she froze up at the sound of click. Slowly she rose up her head and looked down the barrel of a gun. "Enough games. Clean yourself up and get ready to move. We need to get into Vegas while it's still dark out."

"And why should I do anything you say." A deep growl came out of her mouth but they both knew that even at the slightest twitch that the gun would go off and there would be one less Digital Monster in the world.

"First because I said so, second because we need to get into Vegas while it's still dark out so that we can slip into our prey's territory without it noticing us. Otherwise we've lost the element of surprise that I hope to attain by it all." The Hunter slowly un-cocked his gun and slipped it away onto his belt's holster. "Now, clean yourself up so that we can get on the road before sunrise."

(A few moments later)

As the Hunter kicked over the engine of his motor cycle he felt a set of claws dig into his sides. A slight wince could be felt through the leathers and he knew that he was now sporting several new holes in his brand new jacket's sides. "You said that we needed to go, then let us go." The Hunter didn't acknowledge the voice, instead kicked the bike into gear and pealed out as the bike grabbed traction and sped the two along their way to their destination, almost as he wished to dislodge the passenger and leave her in the dust of his bike.

In the blessed night, that bathed the area in a cool temperature, the two sped off towards the distant lights that made up Las Vegas. It was quite strange to see a sight of Las Vegas, as the view of the city was blocked by one last hill, as lights poured over the brim of the hill and made it look like a cloud with a silver lining. To a normal person, the sight would have looked almost magical, but to the two who knew what awaited them upon the entrance to Sin City, it was almost like one of those fish with those dangling lights in front of it to lure in pray to be eaten a moment later.

The Hunter took every precaution to stay unnoticed by nearly every means of monitoring there was; Stop Light Cameras, Video Surveillance at the casinos, etc... The Hunter finally pulled his bike into a storage facility at the edge of the town and into an empty unit that he promptly opened with a key from somewhere within his coat. Once the bike was secure did he turn and look over at the Digital Monster that stood beside him which still had a bit of an upset look upon her fox like face. He hoped that he wouldn't have to explain the reason as to why he was parking here but that didn't seem to be necessary as he saw the fox was turned away from him and looking out of the unit to see if anyone was nearby. An evil thought crept into his mind of him sneaking up behind her and giving her a scare, but before he could carry that thought out his sides gave a sudden twinge of pain at his sides and he realized in doing so that he'd probably get another clawing.

"I trust that you can remain out of sight while I go about the city." He said it in a way that made it sound not so much a question but that of a warning that if the fox wasn't able to that there would be consequences.

The fox slowly turned to look over at him from over its shoulder and he could see the lip slightly curl up in that of a snarl. "Is there no end to your insults, Hunter?" A snarl left her lips as her eyes went a little more into that of a deeper glare. "As if I'd stoop so low as to be caught by some lonely..." She stopped in mid-sentence as she saw that the Hunter wasn't paying her any attention any more. She clenched her fist a bit and could feel the sharpness of her claws digging into her paw/hand a bit in frustration.

"Then it's time to do some recon of the place where that phone call came from." He stated simply as he pulled out his glasses, small wrist computer, and what appeared to be a miniature camera of some kind or another. It only took him a few minutes to get all his gear put into place and then the two were gone.

One of the nicknames of Las Vegas is the town that never sleeps, and as if to prove it the Hunter would often see many raccoon eyed people exiting one casino and disappear into another. Either they were being kicked out of one bar and decided to see what was on tap at the one across the road or they didn't have any luck at one casino and were seeing if their luck would be any better at the other. Though through it all, the Hunter would keep his eyes unfocused to make sure that his eyes would be able to take everything in. Just like his eyes un-focusing to take in more of the area, he also opened his senses all the way to make sure that he wouldn't be taken by surprise. Though he could easily hear the chuckle come from the fox, which was most likely hiding in some shadow, as once during his walk a beggar had come out from the shadows to beg for some loose change, only to be met with a gun pressed right between his eyes.

It only took him a while longer to find a good place to set up shop. Just as the sun was cresting the horizon to begin warming the earth with its light, did it find the Hunter perched on the opposite/adjacent building to the one where the call had come from. "And what exactly are we looking for?"

As he turned and looked to where he heard the voice come from he saw the Dark Renamon slowly emerge from the shadow of the roof access door. It was almost like the thing was like that of an inky dark shadow that was separating itself from the rest of the shadow of the small shack like opening. In all his years of being a Hunter, that sight alone creped him out the most of the Renamon's abilities. Like that of a passing thought, he wondered just how in the world were they able to do such a feet, though he knew that the nightmare soldiers were able to teleport, the Dark Renamon's ability to do that was something else entirely. Ever so slowly he put back his gun in its holster, not realizing he'd drawn it in the first place, but slowly turned back to his hidden position under that of a large water tower that would shade him from the brutality of the sun when it began to bake the Vegas earth.

"If you must know, we are waiting to see who and what comes out of the building adjacent." He said as he turned back to the building and pulled out a few small devices that he began to place at different intervals to capture as many different angles of the building as possible. "The first rule of a Hunter's hunt is to know thy enemy. It would be foolish to just go in there and announce ourselves to our pray and await their attack or retaliation." As he finished his placement of the small devices, he pulled back his sleeve and hit a few keys on his wrist computer, to which a moment later a small green light flicked on, on each of the devices then went dark.

Out of the Hunters eye, he could see the Dark Renamon approach one of his devices, but though it was about to touch the device it stopped and looked back at him. "I guess that these devices will enable us to do something with monitoring the building and the occupants that come and go?" To which the Hunter did nothing other than turn his wrist and show the screen of the wrist computer to it. Displayed on the screen was what looked like a chess board design with several different views of the building. Every once in a while the picture in a different box would change and show a new picture.

Picking up his extra gear the Hunter turned and headed back to the roof access door. "Our work here is done." He said as he flung his bag over one shoulder and opened the door. "We don't need to stay here and bake under the Vegas sun." To which he entered the door and allowed it to slowly close after him.

The Dark Renamon took one final look at the devices then back at the door. "I'm going to have to watch this Hunter a bit more closely. He seems to know what he's doing and I could probably pick up a few ideas from him." With a swish of her tail and a bit of a spring in her step, she walked back to the shadow of the Roof access thing and faded into the shadow of it.

Back at the storage area, the Hunter was pulling out things from his saddle bags and setting them up around the area. Almost like that of a dismissing thought/gesture he flicked something on the table and a fan kicked on somewhere within the storage unit as well as pulled out two bottles of water. 'At least that will keep it from getting too warm in here.' Though once he realized that he'd pulled out an extra bottle of water he froze and stared down at it as if holding it was an offense to him. Why had he pulled out an extra bottle, but when he rationalized it he realized that he must have done so to make sure that he would hear the Dark Renamon whine about being too hot or thirsty. With a nod to that thought he returned to his desk and began hooking up the monitoring cameras feed to a few larger monitors.

It wasn't long before the Hunter felt another presence within the unit along with his own, and leaned back in his chair. Raising up his arm and with a flick of his hand towards the other table he relaxed a bit. "I know that you're probably going to complain, so there's a bottle of water on the table and more in the cooler under the table." With that said he heard the soft footfalls over to the table behind him and heard her sit down upon it.

"I am surprised at you Hunter. You have never turned your back to me before. Could it be that you are finally beginning to...," her words were cut off when she saw him point at something and saw that he was pointing at a small mirror that he'd position near him so that he could keep an eye on what was going on behind him. With a small defeated sigh she uncapped the bottle and took a good long swig. Though through it all she would often catch him looking at her from the mirror and couldn't help but give him a knowing/sly grin as she leaned back a bit and relaxed on the table.

'Is she flirting with me?' The Hunter wondered as he saw her shift every once in a while to a new provocative position. He had to admit though that he did like to watch her in those positions and the swish of her tail. He came back to himself in a bit of a shock at thinking such things about a Digital Monster that his comrades and he hunted for a living. Feeling a bit dirty/guilty for even thinking such things he shook his head and turned back to the monitors. 'I've been without the touch of a woman for too long now, and that's probably the reason why I'm thinking this way.' With the explanation/reason realized he jotted down a few more notes and began to relax.

Periodically the Digital Fox would become restless and begin to pace back and forth in the unit and before long that was beginning to annoy the Hunter. Looking down upon his watch he realized that he too was beginning to become restless from all the sitting he'd done too for the day. Pushing away from the monitor table he raised his arms high and shifted his back around, hearing a few gratifying pops from his back. "Alright, alright, I hear ya. Let's get out of here and get something to eat and stretch our legs."

"It is about time Hunter." She said in an unpleased tone which left little to the imagination that if something wasn't done soon that there'd be trouble.