This full story came about from too much heavy metal, and getting the overwhelming urge to rewatch the entire Vamdemon arc of Digimon Adventure on a whim… ideas kept bombarding me at work, and I'd always have to write it down the minute I got home. Hopefully this will compensate for all of the times I RUINED everyone back in 2002-2005. This is all for practice, so I'm more than accepting of suggestions on how to improve my writing.
Here is my own personal interpretation of pre-Adventure and pre-Adventure Zero Two. It was originally going to be a simple deconstruction of Vamdemon's character, but noticing the obscene amounts of plot holes in Adventure, I decided to revamp (pun not intended) the whole thing and make it a story in which Vamdemon is the mastermind behind not only Zero Two, but Adventure. It answers questions such as 1) how Vamdemon acquired Hikari's crest, 2) why the Dark Masters were subdued prior to the Chosen Children returning to Earth, 3) why Tailmon was the obvious "favourite" of Vamdemon's henchmons (and the obsession with her eyes will also be addressed!) 4) what the deal is with Daemon in Zero Two, and 5) lots of Yukio Oikawa because there just wasn't enough of his backstory in the second season and he is awesome. And a lot of other stuff, but it's already TL;DR to begin with so I will leave it there.
I try to stay true to the original series, including character names, as closely as possible. However if I accidentally slip and use an English dub name, that was a mistake on my part and will be corrected. If anything is unclear to you, it may be addressed in a future chapter or I'll let you know in an author's note. My stuff has more plotholes than Adventure and I really do have difficulty keeping things straight! I'm not one to hold the author's hand either, so something that may be obvious to me as I write it may not be obvious to the reader.
As usual, I don't own Digimon or its characters. The song lyrics that appear in the prologue are from a public domain song from the eighteenth century called "All Through the Night." Thanks to The Digimon Wikia for research assistance!
Lost Is My Name
by Petsy
Prologue – Revangelis
He was an Infant when he first saw the world. His blue eyes smiled to it; nothing extended beyond the coloured blocks and bubbles floating through the air, and emotions beyond happiness and sadness were relegated to nothing but words. Like childhood innocence, this ephemeral world fleeted away before his eyes, and such a vision could never again come into being. She left with the sunset, sending him to fall forevermore. He would spend the remainder of his life pursuing a dream.
His childhood blurred into a dream state. The two played amongst the blocks, laughed, and defied danger by plucking apples from the trees. As they grew and changed form, they strolled through the lush glens, frolicked in the river, and journeyed to the top of the mountain.
"Come, let me show you the world," she said, leading him to a cliff which overlooked the entire island—its snow-covered peaks, its endless forests, the sea surrounding its shores, and the tiny speck of colour representing their village. "This is all ours… they say everyone shares it, but it still all belongs to us."
The surroundings did not matter to him; with her, he would have been happy whilst stranded in the middle of a desert. She was his world; the scope of his sight narrowed only to her, and all he could see was the solitary island that was her. Like the island they gazed upon, such world was fragile, easily deceiving, even cruel to those who could be easily misled.
That night they camped by the firelight, as they lay upon the stone she sang her favourite childhood shanty. He fell asleep with the lyrics resonating in his mind, her angelic voice seemingly singing it only to him.
All through the night-time my lonely heart is singing
Sweeter songs of love than the brown bird ever knew.
Would that the song of my heart could go winging,
Could go winging to you,
To you.
He drifted through an endless void speckled with stars; his body numb, as if the velveteen sky had wrapped and mummified him. He did not know where he was, how he had come to be there, and for a fleeting moment, who he was. He felt himself; had he not been sentient he would not be able to perceive the world around him. However every semblance of his past life had vanished without a trace.
"Welcome, Azraelmon."
Although reduced to an amorphous cloud of data, a voice echoed within him, penetrating his soul and being.
"Who are you?" he thought.
"There is no need to discuss my identity; you are here because you are finished, my child."
"Finished?" he wondered.
Before him appeared a crystal of translucent amethyst; perfectly cut and symmetrical. Within such a flawless dodecahedron festered a dark mist that thrashed away at its crystal prison. Two pairs of yellow eyes flashed on and off for split seconds as the mist writhed. Seeing the crystal gave the former creature's soul a dismal sense of disquietude. "Yes, Azraelmon. Finished," spoke the crystal.
Azraelmon.
The creature remembered who he had been, bridging him to the realization of what he was now. Dead, or about to become dead. He could not be dead; his soul was clearly sentient; his soul was. Death implied was not… a river of thoughts, audible to the crystal, careened through him.
"Who are you?" the former Azraelmon asked again, not speaking but through his stream of consciousness. "Am I dead?"
"No, my child, you are not dead. You are still a sentient being, and as you said, you are. Death implies an end to all, and a being that is is not. You still are, albeit data."
But could he be reconfigured? If he had a heart, it would have pounded in his throat, and had he a stomach it would have squeezed itself into oblivion.
"Your egg has been destroyed. One can only be reconfigured if your egg still remains in the safe womb of Primary Village. Your data cannot assume a corporeal form, therefore it cannot be utilised by this world. Stray data bogs the world down and overthrows the balance between all states. My Death Crystal shall permanently delete you to make room for a new generation of digimon."
Terror engulfed the former Azraelmon as he felt his soul cleaving in twain, spreading wider and thinner than any tangible substance, to infinity. He wished to be, there was so much he desired to experience, he wanted his world… could this crystal before him please have mercy?
His senses blackened. He faded and flickered.
So this was what it was like to die…
So soon, when he had not even found her.
"I see that unlike other digimon before you, you are not as accepting of your fate." Out of the crystal rolled a blue orb protruding from a sheath of white vines, which formed a pedestal beneath it. "Thus I shall bestow upon you a choice, but each path you choose has its respective consequences. You only have a short amount of time to make your decision, so choose wisely. The effects of either is irreversible…"
"Please tell me," implored the soul. "I would give anything for one more chance."
The soul felt itself reassembling, regaining its consciousness and clear mental state.
"You may either accept your fate and allow my Death Crystal to delete you, knowing that you have done good for all beings that shall soon be created. The world will still hang in balance, neither light nor darkness shall prevail, and the sources of this world's downfall shall remain trapped behind the wall of fire and within the ocean of darkness.
"If you may place your soul within this Digitama, you will be reborn where you last fell. Those born of your Digitama shall be unbreakable; as light exists, so will darkness, thus you will forever remain immortal. Becoming an immortal is a condemnation to a half-life, unfulfilled, constantly suffering and starving for what you yearned for in the life before. Some regard immortality as a fate worse than death.
"Only five before you have taken this route. A Mugendramon, a Jyuraimon, a Seadramon, and the Azraelmon before you, all mortally wounded like yourself, chose to be revived by the powers of darkness. This power who revived them was a force greater than myself. It was pure darkness from the body of a chimaera of all of the digimon who perished in their failure to achieve a higher form, melded together by the pain and suffering of those who have passed. This revival was an act of cowardice." The tone of the crystal's voice darkened, laced with resentment. "All four were reconstructed into powerful and deadly beings, achieving their highest forms. The creature built from sorrow and darkness infused its powers into them to bring a stygian state upon the digital world whose light counterbalanced him. This upset the cosmic balance, and the powers of light flourished to send these four cursed beings to their downfall. Two have been reconfigured; one Digitama rests beneath the sea, the other in the heart of the forest. The third remains in the digital world, intent on reviving his master and comrades, though he is subdued.
"The fourth, a Mugendramon, had been reconfigured as it fought the fifth, a Kimeramon. Both, fearing for their lives, fused together and are trapped within their prison, like the source of their powers rests behind the wall of fire, for an eternity."
"Will the same thing happen to me?" wondered the soul.
"Only if your destiny states it will, replied the voice. "There will be consequences for the digital world as well. Your immortality may tip the scale between light and darkness. Beings sealed within their prisons may be released and plunge this world into chaos, others running rampant may perish, and other worlds may unwillingly become involved in bringing the digital world into restoration. At this moment, you alone are responsible for determining the fate of this world, whether or not it remains in the balance or is plunged into light or darkness."
It was clear that this voice was a proponent of predestination. This soul knew he did not believe in such. This crystal knew nothing, it may have been a simple scare tactic to persuade him to accept his fate. Prophecy and destiny were the tools of the ingenuous. Only the most childlike and gullible digimon believed in such nonsense. All he wanted was his loved one, and she would not lead him astray. Remaining with her would surely not upset any alleged "balance"; he could remain immortal, find her, and remain fulfilled for an eternity. The other two whose stories were spoken by the crystal—most clearly those whose spirits were concealed within the crystal—were easily misled. He would not make the same mistake. Immortality could not always be a fate worse than death, but more glorious than life itself. It was life multiplied one thousandfold! Immortality was his choosing, not his fate, and he would mould it at will.
"I see that you have chosen your path. Remember it when your time comes…"
The orb cracked open. With a mighty gust, the soul was sucked inside, compressed, wiped clean of all existing memories.
To save one's soul, we need nothing more than regret, and this regret shall become his fall.
One cannot kill the undead.
