A Monument of Failure

She awoke, but didn't open her eyes. They were always open. She did not blink in confusion nor rise from slumber. Such things were long in the past for her.

'How long did I black out this time' She asked herself.

There were no replies, and nothing before her to give a clear indication. The same trees, the same forest floor, the same vision of her outstretched paw in the corner of her eye. It felt like the vines that had started growing on her legs had moved up a little more perhaps... A week? A month? Longer?

It meant nothing to her at all any more. She once had feared that she was here for so long, but days became nights became weeks became months became years, all merging together even when she stayed awake.

And the blackouts didn't help. They first came soon after petrification. Renamon knew the mind, even a digital one, needed to rest. Even if the stone body was lifeless for all purposes. And so, she had found herself there in the night, and things went black. For a fraction of a second to her, like blinking. But it was day.

However, she had tried to remember. Tried to stay sane with knowledge that was paradoxically maddening, to remember as much of before as she could.

She'd once known the name of her human partner. Known so much about her, but now... Now she barely remembered her face. She still recalled her hair, but the human had become less distinct over time. Was her human even female? She wasn't sure any more.

Sometimes in the dreams, she remembered more. But the memories faded away as she awoke, and each time, Renamon wanted to cry out in rage at losing that fleeting recollection.

The one constant she remembered, was that her partner had suffered for her failure.

Once, she had wanted to forget that. Forget her own weakness, her foolishness. But over time, even dreadful memories were precious. She had to remember something.

And like every time after she awoke, she tried to remember what had happened right after she failed. When she had first became a fixture of this forest.

***

She had stood there, and for a time a sapling had served as an indicator of time passed. She watched it grow, trying to distract herself from remembering what had happened, remembering her failure, but she had never let it go. For with the blackouts came dreams, and in dreams, memories. At first she had wanted to let them go. Now, she wished she had not.

She still had sight, locked in place as it was. She still felt the wind and heard it rustle in the trees. She could feel her feet in the ground and the rain when it fell, dripping from her statue like tears of gods. She had felt it when a wild Biyomon had perched on her with indifference to the stone vixen it stood on, or when a Mikemon had used her leg as a scratching post.

She had heard the contradicting noises of the silent forest. Distant chirps, the rustle of leaves, the occasional distant rumbles of other Digimon fighting. It was all background noise, and to an extent, it was just silence to her after a time.

What she never felt was pain. The sense of feeling seemed to remain as it was subconscious and always on, but pain never happened in stone. Not physically. The random pecking of a Biyomon on her

With eyes locked in place, Renamon could at best only ever zone out the things she had to see. All she ever really focused on in front of her had been the sapling. It had grown and grown, reaching past her height after some time. But as it grew, so did how long Renamon blacked out for. Eventually, her sapling was a tree, and the tree was too tall to let her know how much it had grown.

That was when some of the vines had started growing on her. She was concerned a tree was growing below, and would push her out of the way, but it was merely vines. They had grown and grown, even managing to wrap  up to her hand. At the time, she had hoped the vines would conceal her forever, for how she had failed.  But there was to be no such luck. In fact, it was to get worse.

She blacked out once, and awoke to see a glow ahead of her and hear something more than the silent racket of the forest sounds. A roar straight from hell with the flames to match. A forest fire. She had felt alarm and panic. She feared for her sapling that she had watched, for her vines... but not, she had later remembered, for herself.

She watched, wanting to scream as the flames drew closer and closer. They burned her sapling away. It had become a tall tree, but the flames burnt it down entirely to ashes. The vines wrinkled and warped, flashing away to dust in moments.

But her stone body stayed unharmed. It merely warmed up, and merely became blackened by soot. Of course, for her in her mind, she still felt it all. It wasn't pain of course. Stone felt no pain, but the sensation of the heat registered. It was strange.

As the flames had died down, she felt failure once more. The hand in the corner of her eye was blackened and charred. She was unaware of it, but as she cooled a few hairline cracks had formed. Everything before her was changed. The tree, the vines, gone. Just scorched wasteland, a few shells of burnt out trunks.

She stared at that scene and felt somehow she had failed again. She stared at the wasteland, unchanging and blackened. It rained. She allowed herself to pretend that the water was her tears for her forest.

But she blacked out again, and when she awoke, there had been many saplings. Life was returning to the charred forest...

***

Back in her self, in the present, she looked ahead. Her trees had changed from the fire, but they were back. Her new saplings had all become taller, and again had lost track of the time in their growth. She didn't know it, but years of rain had washed the soot of the fire from her. The years had repaired her failure forest, but not her original failure.

She still felt reluctance to remember it, but mostly thanks to how much she knew she forgot. Why had they been here? What was her partner's name? Who had petrified  her? What had happened to her partner afterwards?

She tried to recall her last dream. The important facts had gone, but maybe...

"Renamon! Watch out!" The human cried.

Renamon did as commanded by her red haired human. She landed beside her partner, dodging a beam attack. The attacker fell back though, leaving the two some brief respite.

She could never remember what she said to the human here. She presume she spoke the name of the human, commented on the attacker, but she didn't know. She recalled the human's reply, or she thought she did.

"Yeah. I think maybe... maybe this is one we should get away from. We're going to need help from Goggles."

She knew the human sounded reluctant to do that, as if retreating from a hopeless battle or seeking help from others was an alien desire to the human. Perhaps Humans had no fear at all

And then Renamon found herself remembering something long lost outside of the dream.

The human glanced around, and paused.

"Is he still around?"

"I don't know. He has no scent..."

Rika sighed...

Rika! Rika Her human had been called Rika!

... and then spoke.

"Figures. He does look like a robot. He's not a digimon though... right?"

Rika turned to face her, and Renamon looked at the lavender eyes, and that suddenly all-so-vivid face. Alive, with a frown of worry. Not fearful, but concerned.

She remembered her face! The face of her human!

"No. I don't think it's as strong as some of the more powerful digimon, but I can't gauge his real strength. Maybe strong champion, weak ultimate... but it might be playing down any real strength." Renamon replied.

"Either way, you got pretty beat up out there until he stopped toying with you... I don't know what those beams do but..."

And then she saw her failure again.

Rika's face twisted into a cry of shock, a green beam hitting her. Renamon could only stare in shock, then in her memory and now looking back, as that vivid face she'd only just remembered became a blank frozen scream. Those deep eyes became empty shallow white globes. That firey hair dulled to alabaster. That live, warm peachy skin, damp with some perspiration and reddened from exertion, became cold grey rock, dry as a bone and a marble-flecked series of similar shades.

Renamon cried out in shock. And then she too felt the beam. The sensation of a dull cold numbness everywhere at once, as every cell, every hair, every inch of skin and fur became rock, down to the core. Every scrap of data converted.

And her enemy walked over. It was green... or brown. Maybe dark grey. Or black. Either way, it looked like a robotic... something.

The blue face smirked, and spoke in a robotic voice.

"A human statue. I have so few. I'll be taking this one."

It studied her with the dark red face it had.

"You... I have one of you already. You can stay."

And helplessly, she watched the obsidian thing take the grey marble statue of Rika away, her white and blue clothing an odd contrast to her grey skin...

***

She felt sorrow and joy, horror and happiness. She had been forced to remember how she had failed, but she remembered Rika! Remembered how she had lost, lost her. But remembered her memory again. Rika was... From what the thing had said, part of some sick collection but it gave her hope her human was all right! Or at least still existed. It was so painful, but it was so great for her.

She wished it was raining. She wanted to weep for joy and sadness, and she wanted tears. But there was no rain. There was just the noise of the forest.

She resolved to never forget. She would stand here, in memory of Rika, wherever she was. In memory of what had gone wrong. She hoped her human partner, her friend, was safe. It was too much to wish Rika was back alive, so she hoped that the statue she had become was kept safe and sound, and that Rika's memories and dreams were more pleasant. She resolved that this was her duty now to her partner. A memorial in almost every sense of the word.

And so she still stood, trying to remember. Trying not to forget her partner, herself, how she had been weak. She was a monument to her failure and she could do nothing more but commemorate it.

Desert Treasures

"Okay, Gatomon... We are lost, aren't we?" Kari sighed.

"I told you Kari, I... Okay, yeah, we're lost." The cat Digimon confessed.

"Greaaat... And nowhere to take shelter and wait for the others to come find us."

Gatomon shrugged.

"Hey, could be worse. We could be lost with Davis..."

Kari chuckled.

"He's not that bad, I can get him to shut up. Now, being stuck with Tai...."

Gatomon shuddered theatrically

"Still, you could use his hair for some shade."

Kari's attention however was not on her partner. She had saw something glimmer in the sand.

"Hey... Is that a... A lamp?"

Half-buried in the sands, there was indeed a small golden lamp. The pair neared it, and both groaned.

"Great. A golden lamp in a desert. Well, I'm not touching it." Kari said.

"Agreed. If I'm right that might be a Lampmon. I wouldn't risk it being one of the sane ones."

"What do the insane ones do? Misinterpret the wish?"

"Exactly." Gatomon nodded.

"So... It's either a trap or just dangerous. I think we should go the other way now." Kari figured.

"Yeah. Let's go..."

They turned to leave, but suddenly a burst of yellow smoke erupted in front of them. Gatomon leaped to shield Kari, who had tried to raise her hand to cover her face.

And both then found they were frozen in place. Their eyes flickered in surprise.

"What... I can't move anything but my face!" Kari cried out.

"Me neither." Gatomon proclaimed, as the dust faded, to show a green-skinned Genie.

"Uh oh... That's the Lampmon, isn't it?"

The Genie nodded.

"Yes I am. Tell me, why did you ignore the chance of three wishes?"

"Um... Well, because I thought it was a trap."

The Genie looked a little annoyed.

"A trap. A trap. Always, a trap. Not one 'mon ever trusts a Lampmon. Why? What's wrong with us? Oh, sure, people expect us to trick them. But really, what kind of things would you wish for, for example?"

He challenged Kari with this statement.

"Um... let me go?" She tried.

"There. Now, what could I do with that wish that is bad? I'd just let you go. But of course I'm not granting you three wishes. Because you think I'm mad, don't you?"

"Well, uh... Not mad..." Gatomon tried.

"Well, I am! Very mad! Very angry mad! All I ever wanted is someone to grant wishes for. These are my sands, and I am supposed to set the rules, but everyone breaks them. All I ask is someone rubs my lamp."

"That doesn't sound weird at all..." Gatomon rolled her eyes.

"Very droll. I don't think I want to talk to you any more. Besides, a lamp being rubbed is no different to a fleabag cat getting a petting." Lampmon sighed, and breathed out a gold mist.

"Golden Smog!" He proclaimed, and the cloud enveloped Gatomon.

Kari glanced down, as Gatomon yelled in shock. Kari yelled too, for at her feet, Gatomon's white fur turned into shimmering gold.

"What did you just do?!" Kari asked.

"I turned her to gold. Really, I thought it was kind of obvious. You'll turn to gold too of course, but slowly, because I want to talk to you a little more."

"W...Why are you doing this to us?! Because we didn't rub your lamp?" Kari stammered.

She glanced down at her golden partner. Her own legs were becoming gold, a small spot there spreading out. Her clothing wasn't changing. It felt odd, like there was a warm liquid spreading out from the patches, leaving a slight cooling sensation behind. It wasn't painful, at least.

"Well, that, and you'll have friends who might really want some wishes. If you go away, you'll tell them not to come. So, I turn you to gold, they find you, they get wishes! Maybe one will wish to turn you back!"

"Or they'll just attack you for petrifying me!" Kari countered.

Lampmon was puzzled, and clicked his fingers. A dictionary appeared, and he opened it.

"Petrify... Petrify... huh, there's a picture of a gorgon here, take a look..."

He turned the book. Kari, for a second, was transformed to stone instead, with a small wave of gold above the hem of her socks.

"Ooops, it's a pretty detailed picture, I guess."

He snapped his fingers and Kari gasped to be turned back to flesh. Still paralysed and still turning to gold, but not stone any more.

"Okay, what's with the deadly dictionary?!" Kari fumed.

"Sorry about that. Anyway, you said petrifying. That means to turn to stone. You're turning to gold."

"You knew what I meant! And besides, you did just turn me to stone!" Kari argued back.

"Semantics. What I'm doing is... Oh, wait..."

He flicked his dictionary, and found the word.

"Aha. Guilding. No, that's coating. Well, Gold is Auric, right, so, Aurification? Either way, you're turning to gold. From the waist up now."

Kari looked down, and her legs were now a solid, yellow, metal.

"Now, anyway, your friends, they can track you with this thing, right?"

Lampmon had grabbed her D-3.

"Be truthful or I'll look for another dictionary page." Lampmon half-threatened.

Kari sighed.

"Yeah, they can. And if you think destroying it will do anything, it won't, they can track it to the last place it was. And like I said if they find me and Gatomon as twenty-four carat gnomes they won't be happy."

"Oh, I don't plan to. See, i'm going to move you after I nullify it. This is your last position, and I think my lamp looks nicer here than it will anywhere else. You however, will look much better a few dunes over."

"But all the sand looks the same..." Kari said, bewildered.

Lampmon fumed.

"The same?! The same?! I'll have you know the sand over here is zero point zero three micrometres smaller than the sand over there! It's much more fine! That stuff is more solid! How do you humans not see such obvious things?"

Kari had felt the warmness reach over her stomach. Her legs now felt cool.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay. But please, I never meant any insult, and neither did Gatomon. We... We were just being careful."

"Perhaps. But I want to be careful too. You say seeing you will cause them to be angry at me. I want your friends to come, but I don't want them to cause trouble. So, I convert your digivice like this..."

Her D-3 glowed, and became a normal Digivice. He hooked it over her outstretched, paralysed arm.

"...And then when you're all gold, I move you. They come here, rub my lamp, and maybe they wish you normal!"

"And if they find me first?" She asked. The wave was at her shoulders, heading up her arms and neck.

"Oh. Well, your Digivice has been charmed. Anyone finds you, they'll be angry, they won't want to rub my lamp. So it'll turn them to gold too!"

Kari was horrified. Visions of all her friends, all turned to gold like her, passed across her mind. She wasn't able to speak anymore: The wave had frozen her open mouth in gold, and only above her nose and below her elbows remained flesh.

She turned in silence, even as she protested mentally. She was left trapped in her motionless gold body, eyes locked in one direction, and with a dangerous Digivice hooked over her arms.

"Well, see you later! Your friends ought to come soon. If they rub my lamp I'll try to remind them they can't find you, but my memory is like a sieve these days.  Lampmon smiled.

A tornado of sand erupted, and Kari found herself and Gatomon warped to... well, to her, it looked like Lampmon had left.

'But I bet the sand here is something like seventeen millitrillibilligrams lighter or something...' She found herself thinking with somewhat inappropriate sarcasm.

Well, this was a fine mess. A golden needle in a haystack of sand. All because she ignored some random treasure in the desert. And now, her friends were about to blunder into that same threat, and she and Gatomon were just desert treasures themselves.

She sighed in her mind.

Suddenly, Lampmon appeared before her.

"Oh, almost forgot, I can hear what you're saying in your head, but I forgot to leave Gatomon concious. I'll fix that and let you two hear each other but right now I need to head back to my lamp. Bye!"

The slighlty-mad Genie left, as Gatomon's thoughts became audible.

'What the... I've been turned to gold?! Damn it, he Golden Smogged me! Wait... Where's Kari?!'

'I'm right here. I'm fine. Well, sort of. I'm gold too and my Digivice will turn any of our friends who come too close to gold as well, and he's luring them into out last position to try and get his lamp rubbed.'

'Wait... We can talk to each other telepathically? What happened exactly?'

Kari sighed again. She was doing a lot of that...

'Okay, you were just mindless gold most of the conversation but before I tell you... I want to know something. '  

'...Okay, go on.'  Gatomon said.

'This is your fault you know.'

Now Gatomon sighed.

'Can we get him back? I think I preferred being the mindless gold if you're going to be all snippy....'

Back in his lamp, Lampmon smiled to hear the two new statues in his sands arguing over who was to blame. Digidestined were fun! He just hoped some of them had some fun wishes too...