A/N: Written for:

Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, ch 1 event 7 – write from the POV of a villain
Digimon bingo, the non-flash version, #336 – Oikawa Yukio
Diversity Writing Challenge, b19 – write a fic centred on one character's view on another character
Advent Calendar 2015 – day 4 – post a fic for a challenge

A New Puppet

Once upon a time, the puppets had been alive. Had their own dreams, their own hopes – and he'd beaten it out of his servants until their vibrant blue data was black and holed. But he hadn't done a good enough job at that. Hadn't done a good enough job training them up either, giving them a level of competency. The only ones who succeeded were Tailmon and Wizarmon – and they were also the two who betrayed him.

He hated them, but at least Wizarmon had gotten his just desserts by his hand. Tailmon though… Tailmon and those Chosen who'd had the audacity to destroy him twice… But even they couldn't manage it completely. Wisps of his soul survived, and floated free.

If only one of his mindless servants were still about, he could easily have taken up residence in their bodies and twisted them to his will. But the Chosen had been thorough, and the only one left had been that useless fluffball he'd devoured himself. Pitiful. The masses of tasty humans were better than that.

And perhaps that was a better idea, in any case. A human like the Chosen who'd stolen Tailmon, who'd stolen Wizarmon – and they'd stolen Tailmon long before he'd gotten his own fangs into her, filling her head with hope and longing and dreams…

Only the victor dreamed, and he would be the victor.

But he needed a new puppet. Many new puppets, really, but one most of all to shelter him and let him grow back to his former glory…and beyond. If the Chosen fell in the process, then so much the better, but most pleasurable of all would be to crush them under his own wingbeats at long last: the delectable ice-cold dish of revenge.

And he hadn't the power or the time to spend moulding them, so it had to be a human that was already broken. As far as digimon went, there were few. Far too few. But he could sense a fitting human nearby and that was luck or fate or the simple payment of his inevitable victory.

The Chosen might continue to get stronger, but he would bide his time right under their noses and then surpass them all.

The man still had a will. A pesky annoyance, but he could manipulate that will and wind up all the richer for it. And it was so easy to manipulate him. A promise was all he wanted. A trip to the digital world.

He'd take the digital world, and the human one, and shed the puppet corpse when he no longer needed it but here was his perfect tool in the meantime, the carrot to dangle in front of the other's face. So easy… 'Give yourself to me, and I'll take you there.' As his vessel, as the body that would transport him to his long-awaited throne.

'Yes! Yes…'

And the fool would never realise what he'd gained and lost to that whispering voice in his ear. He wouldn't even recall, so effortlessly he slipped in and inserted himself into that mind, that psyche. Oikawa Yukio: that was the man's name. Was; no longer. Now, Vamdemon was synonymous with him. At least during this intermission where he recovered and laid new plans and grew stronger. And the will would continue to diffuse into his own, continue until there was no Oikawa Yukio left but only Vamdemon, and then the man would be a true puppet, the likes of which he'd never achieved with his digimon servents – and, if he had, perhaps he'd have been able to stamp out Tailmon's betrayal.

But it didn't matter now. He had new tools, new opportunities. And, if it hadn't been for Tailmon, the door to the human world would not have opened for him in the first place. And how ironic was that? And how ironic that this suitable puppet of his knew the digital world as well, and wanted to go, like those foolish children who thought they'd won a battle here when they had not. And the promise… Oh, I'll take you there… But how much of you will be left when we go?