Red-Eyed Menace [Dio & Gio]

[Kitt]

Kitt smiled softly, agreeing with Gio’s sentiments. It was the least he could do to repay Setsuna, Aylin, and Toki for taking him in. He wanted to follow their teachings to heart and to try and spread the kindness he has received to others, and for someone as nice as Gio, he thought it was the perfect place to start.

He let out a shocked gasp as the Guilmon-X gave him a strong pat on the back, fumbling a little bit, but still maintaining his grip on his fishing pole. His surprised expression soon lifted into a nervous, weary chuckle. “If you say so, Mr. Gio,” Kitt answered. It seems that the humans that Gio has interacted with were all nice and thankfully, benevolent. It eases Kitt’s heart. But still, he would remain cautious to avoid getting spotted by any humans, whether they knew Digimon or not, as he was hesitant of ever interacting with one.

Hearing how fast the reel made when it sped in reverse, Kitt stood up on full alert, knowing that a fish had fallen for his bait. He kept his fishing rod up at about a 45-degree angle, maintaining some pressure on the fish. For a moment it felt like the fish was no longer taking out line, causing Kitt to slowly try and reel it in, only to feel the fish swimming back against the line. He gritted his teeth in response; this wasn’t just a smart fish, but an intelligent one as well. Any more surprises like that, the hook might dislodge and he might lose his first bite of the day, and he wasn’t about to let that happen.

After asking his new friend for assistance, he expected at first for the Guilmon-X to lift him up so they could out-strength the fish, only to watch him dive into the water, perplexing the Spadamon. “W-Wait!” He gripped his pole even tightly, feeling a strong tug, and then…nothing. No further resistance from his catch. He glanced down to the waters, seeing a faint red glow beneath the surface. “Mr. Gio..?” he muttered in concern.

But soon enough, Gio emerged back to the surface, with their catch in tow. “Mr. Gio! You did it,” he exclaimed. Once Gio made his way back up, he gave the fish to Kitt, causing Kitt to slightly stagger as he set it down on the wooden walkway. The faint, roasted aroma of the fish caused Kitt to unconsciously salivate a bit from the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, we sure do. Though I didn’t expect you to dive straight in, I can’t deny the steamy results.”

Wrapping the line back into his makeshift rod, he attached another bait lure into the end. “I hope it’s not too much to ask of you, but do you want to do the same thing again: I hold the fish in place and you dive in to catch it?” he asked. “I think if we keep this, we’ll catch lots of fish, Mr. Gio.”

[disasterduo]

"Heh, well...my brother always says the best solution is also the easiest sometimes. And this was easy for me." He said with a toothy grin, clear delight at the praise he got from the spadamon. Try as he might he too had a hint of a proud streak, no doubt something his brother had rubbed off on him after a while. No need to make a show of it though, just taking the compliment and carrying on was plenty for him. As he got ready to sit back down however, Kitt came up with a rather brilliant idea: what if they kept fishing this way? Clearly it was working out better than waiting. Gio's eyes practically sparkled at the thought.

"Yes, I'd love to! Sounds like a great plan." He replied immediatelly, a nod of the head so energetic he could have probably knocked out Kitt with it had he been anywhere close to it! Without a second wasted he positioned himself by the side of the docks and waited, his body tense like a cat ready to pounce. And pounce he did as soon as the line showed any hint of tensing. He dived into the water again and again, each time coming out with another freshly caught prey. Cods, herrings, bass, you name it, they most certainly caught one and then some for what felt like hours, though probably it wasn't anywhere longer than thirty minutes or so, give or take.

After a while however the influx of fishes began to slow down little by little, until the lizard turned around to face Kitt, the slightest hint of dissapointment in his tone.

"Hmmm, I think that's gonna be it for now Mr. Kitt, fishes are staying away from our side of the lake now." It didn't last long however as his eyes locked on their small mountain of recently fished delights. This had been a productive endeavour for sure! "This should be more than enough for your friends though."

The mention of friends however gave the guilmon pause for a moment, briefly staring into space before realization hit him like a ton of bricks.

"CRAP! I forgot about-!"

"The hell are you doing here?!" The whiny yet commanding voice thundered nearby, making the black lizard turn around in it's direction with a nervous look. Just a couple steps away he could see the obscured one eyed figure approaching him with angry stomps, his singular eye glowing with an intense and furious red.

"D-dio?"

"Not only you dissapear for who knows how long but you're eating? With a stranger? Without me?!" The impmon x growled under his breath, the intensity of his glare doing a lot of heavy lifting in closing the size difference between him and his brother, who looked as regretful as he could be, ears drooped to the side as looked down at the floor. "S-sorry, I got distracted."

[Kitt]

“Your brother sounds incredibly wise,” Kitt remarked with a smile. “That advice sounds like something my friend Toki would say." He raised a finger. "‘With any wall, there’s always a way to climb over it.’" He recited. Despite it not being the correct way to fish from how Toki showed him, he was not the type of individual to judge another; as long as the results yield success, that was plenty enough. Everyone has their own way of doing things, and fishing was no exception. So when he asked Gio if he could try it again, the latter of which replied very enthusiastically, he couldn’t help but light up in excitement as well.

“Hehe, alright, let’s do this! But let me know whenever you want to take a break.” He positioned himself a couple of inches from the edge of the dock with his fishing rod. The most important thing when it comes to fishing is deciding on where you want to cast your line according to where you think plenty of fish will be. He’d give Gio a nod of reassurance before casting his line into the waters. His body remained still, waiting to feel any tension from his line. The tension was so thick that you could cut it with a blade. When he saw the bait being tugged deeper into the water, that was when the Guilmon-X made his move, diving head-first into the waters and catching the fish with his claws. And they proceeded to do it…again, again, and again, each time catching more and more different types of fish of all sizes, some fish that Kitt had never seen before.

After several minutes, Kitt’s bait supply ran out, but they caught a pile full of fish, so much so that it was stacking upwards!

“That’s alright. I used the last of my bait, but I didn’t expect to catch this many fish by myself,” he exclaimed, looking at all the fish they’ve caught. “And I couldn’t have done it without you, Mr. Gio!”

He extended his hand and offered to shake Gio’s paw should he accept it. He eyed at the pile of fish. They’ve caught a lot of fish, so much so that this might be a little too much for Skadi, Toki, and the others back in the sanctuary. He opened his mouth, ready to ask the Guilmon-X if he wanted to take half of the pile with him since he did half the work, but that was quickly interrupted by a booming voice.

Kitt quickly cowered behind Gio, his tail lowering and puffing in fear as he saw where the voice was coming from: an Impmon-X, wearing an crossed-out eye patch over his right eye, a belt with a yellow smiley face and a long tattered neckerchief. He stomped his way to them, demanding where the Guilmon-X had been.

When his piercing red eye eventually turned to focus on Kitt, he began to shake, nervously flickering his gaze between the imp Digimon and the wooden floor.

“H-h-hi there…” Kitt stammered, still peeking behind Gio. “Y…You…must be Dio. Mr. Gio told me a bit about you. I-I’m Kittusnami.” He proceeded to bow, trying his best to stop his body from shaking. He hoped that if he tried to explain what they were doing, he would come to understand...hopefully

[disasterduo]

"He is! He doesn't show it much but he can be very clever sometimes." The guilmon nodded in agreement. In fact, his brother was the smartest person he knew! Not that he had much competition, or an unbiased opinion, but this was something he believed wholeheartedly at least. Though judging from Kitt's words, this Toki person seemed fairly wise as well, as the spadamon's quoting struck a positive chord with the lizard. "Ooh, that's good, I'll have to tell him that one." Surely that would make Gio seem a lot smarter in his brother's eyes, or at least a bit more well read.

Unfortunately there would be little time to flex his newly adquired philosophical knowledge to Dio, as he was too busy fuming right now to care about such things. In fact, hearing his brother's excuse about being "distracted" only seemed to make the imp even angrier, a red glow being briefly visible behind his eyepatch as he leaned in closer to the Guilmon, who was immediatelly reassured that having said that was indeed, a poor idea.

"Understatement." The imp coldly stated, eyes practically burning a hole through his brother's head with how intense he was glaring. Gio tried to meet his gaze but failed time and again, not so much out of fear or concern but genuine remorse and shame, one of his claws having barely left the back of his neck since his brother had arrived. Unable to get much more from his taller brother besides remorseful fidgeting, the impmon's fiery eye now lowered to look at the digimon cowering behind his brother, the poor spadamon barely letting out a meek greeting and bow in his direction, no doubt as a feeble attempt to defuse the tension between the brothers. It was met by an unimpressed huff from the purple fiend, who shoved his brother aside as he got closer to the spadamon.

"Tch, and what is he supposed to be? My replacement?" He growled, an index firmly pressed against Kitt's forehead.

"A-actually he's a spadamon." Gio nervously corrected his brother, as if that was the answer he was looking for. It wasn't.

"I can see that." He huffed again, annoyed, his index now flicking the spadamon across the forehead before Dio placed his hands on his hips, a show of body language that would have probably looked more amusing than threatening to literally anyone else. "So, Kittsunami, care to tell me why my brother is all damp and reeking of dead bait?"

"Well..."

"I'm talking to him." Dio snapped, quickly cutting any of Gio's possible explanations short. If this cat wanted out of this, he'd have to use his own words and not rely on the guilmon for a shield, literally and otherwise.

[Kitt]

Kitt smiled at Gio’s remark for his brother. He must be an amazing individual if the Guilmon-X was able to talk about him in such high regard. He was the same with Toki. Not only was he extremely knowledgeable about humans (he was one according to him), he was very warm and kind, and also very soft too! So seeing Gio catching fish in an unorthodox, yet effective manner, it reminded him of the words Toki imparted onto him. And surely enough, Gio liked the quote as well.

“Hehe, it’s a really nifty human saying he taught me,” Kitt remarked, his tail swishing on the pier like a joyful housecat. “Hey, next time if you want to do some more fishing, you can bring your brother along? I’d like to meet him.” The Spadamon realized he was getting a little too bubbly and awkwardly retracted. “If-If that’s something you want to do, Mr. Gio…”

And sure enough, Kitt’s wish would come true, but not in the way that he’d expected. Hearing the thundering authoritative voice made him quickly jump in fear and hide behind Gio in response. Seeing the scarfed Impmon’s cold glare was enough to send a cold shiver down Kitt’s spine. But still, that didn’t stop him from trying to introduce himself as best as he could, despite his fur standing up on all ends.

Dio shoved his brother aside and firmly placed a finger on his forehead, demanding to know if Kitt was supposed to be his replacement.

Kitt blinked, surprised. “Re…placement? Ahh!” A sudden flick to the forehead would make him wince, rubbing the area of impact. Dio leveled at Kitt with a long, hard stare, as if challenging the lion Digimon to step up to his level. Kitt was nervously flickering his gaze between the imp Digimon, Gio and the wooden floor, sweating bullets.

“W…well…I-I was t-teaching him how f-fish, a-and…he jumped in and caught a b-big one with it h-hooked to the line. T-then we decided to…to…to…”

Kitt’s voice began to falter, arms literally shaking as he fiddled his fingers until he was unable to look at the Impmon-X, or even apologize for what he assumed was a team effort between him and Gio.

[disasterduo]

"We decided to...to...to..." Dio mockingly parroted back at Kitt, doing his best to match his trembling voice before going back to his usually bratty tone. "To what?"

It was blatantly obvious Kitt was not one to be used to confrontations, verbal or otherwise. Instead of attempting to stand his ground or even move away, the Spadamon just seemed to shrink more and more under the constant pressure of Dio's contempt filled glare. This was not lost on Gio, who'd soon would have enough of seeing this display and try to position himself between him and his brother.

"Dio that's...that's enough. I went away on my own, you don't have to get angry at Kitt." For once the imp turned his attention away from the white cat (if only because Gio was standing in the way now) and focused on his taller sibling once more, loudly clicking his tongue in annoyance.

"Why, is he really so weak-willed you have to apologize in his behalf too?" He shook his head, eyes closing for a moment as if he couldn't bear to see this sorry excuse for a digimon in front of him...which would soon turn into a slight startled look as he found Gio leaning closer to him as soon as he opened them, this time he was the one bearing an expression of pure annoyance.

"What's it to you? Since when do you care about that stuff?" He questioned, a quizzical but no less judgmental hint in his look. He knew his brother was a rather petty individual, but something about this situation felt...different for some reason. This level of animosity towards someone like Kitt felt disproportionate, even for Dio. Whatever it was though, the imp was certainly not backing down from it any time soon.

"At any rate..." He shrugged, ignoring the question as he shoved his brother to the side once more before planting his index right in the middle of Kitt's chest. "Why don't you show me your fishing expertise, then?" The imp said as he shifted his weight forward and took a step. Then another, and another. If Kitt didn't resist he'd soon realize he was slowly being pushed closer and closer to the edge of the lake by the eyepatch wearing impmon, despite Gio's loud protesting.

"D-Dio! Come on!"

"Ah ah ah...I just wanna see how well he fishes. Surely if you two make such a great team together you won't mind showing me, right?"

[Kitt]

Kitt’s mouth opened to respond but he didn’t make a sound. He couldn’t. All he could do was cower away in response. The Impmon-X’s tone and his contempt-filled glare from his beaming red eye were slowly making him crack and crumble on his shaky feet. He didn’t know what to say or how to appropriately de-escalate the misunderstanding; he was utterly powerless here.

When Gio diverted Dio’s attention away from Kitt and stood up for him, the Spadamon simply retreated back to his new friend’s side, hiding behind him and holding his waist tight, something he’d usually do with Skadi whenever he felt uncomfortable and scared, or whenever he made a faux pas. For just a moment, he felt a sense of comfort as the eyepatch-wearing Impmon continued to chew him out. The large black dino was the only protection that Kitt had to fall back to, so when he felt his grip suddenly coming loose and being brought back into the line of fire again, he wanted to run away.

Before he could do so, Dio extended his finger right into the middle of his chest and began to push him back. Kitt wriggled uncomfortably, afraid of what would happen if he decided to bolt. Realizing that he was being slowly pushed further and further towards the edge of the pier, panic began to settle in.

“W-W-Wait,” Kitt screamed. “I-I don’t know how to swim!” He squirmed, Dio was pushing him with no signs of stopping. Tears began to appear in his eyes. “Please don’t make me fall in there! H-Help! Mr. Gio, help me!!

[disasterduo]

When Gio felt the desperate clutching of the spadamon behind him, trying as hard as he could to hide using the lizard as a shield, something...hurt deep within the guilmon x. The shaking, the desperate pleading, it was all a lot yes, but it was Kitt's attempts of hiding, of looking for comfort in the heat of the moment that truly made this situation feel as bad as it did. He reached with his hand to softly pet the cat's head, fruitlessly attempting to put him at ease as stood as firmly as he could between his brother and the cub.

"Dio...stop. You're acting like-" But he couldn't finish his sentence before the imp took this a step further. A step too far even, as he slowly began shoving the increasingly agitated Kitt to the shore of the lake. But Gio wasn't the only one growing more agitated with each passing minute, as the Spadamon's pleas seemed to only make Dio angrier.

"Good grief...you truly are pathetic, aren't you?" His voice crawled out of him with sheer contempt and incredulity. How...how was it possible for a digimon to be this freaking weak? How could something like this survive this long without being stepped on by the lowliest of rookies? It irked him. Perhaps more than he himself realized, as if Kitt's mere existence was a slap to his face, to everything he had been conditioned to believe. As if someone held a twisted mirror to your face just to point out your every flaw. This couldn't stand...he wouldn't let it stand.

As they got a mere couple steps away from the edge, the imp would finally stop shoving the spadamon against the edge, eyeing him down once more as if to give him one final chance to prove himself. Truth be told his mind was already set as he took another step towards Kitt. And another, and another...until he took one step too far and found himself falling face first into the lake.

Well, it would be more accurate to say he was pushed.

"I said enough!" Gio yelled with righteous indignation at the lake, letting out a loud huff before turning to Kitt, his expression immediatelly softening as he'd reach out with both arms and wrap the spadamon in a tight hug. "Are you ok Sir Kitt?"

He couldn't just sit back and let this sad scene carry on, not when Kitt's safety was on the line. Not when Dio was acting this hypocritical.

"What the hell was that?!" A voice cried out from the lake, the eyepatch wearing imp coughing and loudly wheezing as he tried his best to stay afloat the lake's murky water. Gio could barely manage a look of contempt at him.

"Serves you right! That was really uncalled for Dio." Gio chided his brother in a scolding tone.

"You're one to talk!" He retorted, incredulous. "Since when do you waste your time on lost causes?"

"Since when did you become a bullying ass?!" Gio snapped back, and this did manage to shut the imp for a bit longer...or maybe it was just him barely being able to talk and swim at the same time, hard to say.

[Kitt]

Even when expressing his inability to swim, the Impmon seemed to get only increasingly angrier, and was still committed to pushing Kitt over the edge and into the water. Kitt’s eyes clenched shut, the tears in his eyes now flowing down his face. He didn’t understand why this was happening. He didn’t understand what he had done wrong to cause the Digimon before him to act this way, or how he could make up for it. It wasn’t right, but he didn’t have the power to do anything about it.

A few steps away from the edge, Dio’s shoving would abruptly stop. He opened his eyes to meet his glowering, unsympathetic gaze. Kitt swallowed hard, feeling like there was something stuck in his throat as if it was choking him. He couldn’t breathe. His vision was blurred by tears as he felt the Impmon resume to push him more.

The finger closed in, and Kitt closed his eyes, preparing for the worse. For the scarf-wearing Impmon to push him into the cold ravine. For him to struggle staying afloat, before sinking, never to be seen again by his friends at the sanctuary. But it never came.

He heard an audible splash from behind, and a bellowing shout right besides him, before he felt himself being pulled into somebody’s arms.


Hearing his name, Kitt’s eyes widened, seeing that it was Gio that came to his aid, pushing his brother into the waters. His grip was almost smothering, but comforting. He looked up to the giant lizard with a shocked expression, his head giving him the tiniest nod. Kitt hadn’t realized he was hugging him back just as tightly.

His ear twitched upon hearing Dio’s words. Through the tears, he felt something snap inside of him, but stayed his words for the time being, crying silently and burying his face into Gio's chest.

[tsukistar]

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