Disclaimer: I do not own digimon.
I got the idea for this story when I was watching Digimon Adventure 01 episode 45. In it, Piedmon slips this black orb into the back of Gennai's neck, but the story never addresses what it was or what it did. I decided to take this in my own hands and write a story from it, using the orb as the main focus of the plot.
This story is basically an alternate to Adventure 01, but I will still follow the main storyline of the series. I'm trying to keep in mind that TK is only 8 years old, but I'm not a huge fan of fluff writing and dialogue. I like to write more on a darker, less cheery side, but I will try to have some fluff and feel-good moments throughout this story.
I also will leave an author's note on each new chapter, but I will delete the author's notes from the previous chapters, except for this one.
Preface/Introduction:
The sun was shining brightly in the sky, a big ball of light that lit the entirety of the world. A cloud passing by here and there brings a temporary darkness, but the light still finds a way to shine through and eventually the cloud fades away. Floramon are soaking up the sun, its light replenishing their energy and brightening their moods. A Unimon flies to a nearby watering hole and roosts. Dolphmon can be seen hopping out of the water as they swim. Every digimon has its own unique place in the world and live together peacefully with one another. Each digimon has its own hopes and dreams and there's nothing preventing them from reaching their dreams. That world emanates joy, peace, hope. And he hates it.
Born into darkness. Never able to make it to the other side, the Digital World, but yet forced to watch its beauty and brilliance from afar. In the Digital World, digimon are free to do whatever makes them happy; they are able to enjoy a life happily with other digimon. They are able to digivolve, mature, live their lives to the fullest, and eventually be reborn again. There are digimon that experience complications with digivolution, and all of these failed attempts, all of those dark, negative feelings of not being able to digivolve are what he is made out of.
Fury builds up in him and he lets out a roar, which fades into nothingness the minute he stops. Darkness, that is all that surrounds him, that is what he is made out of. It's not fair that the other digimon get to live happy lives, while he is forced to suffer for all eternity by himself. No, he will not accept this. He will not be alone in this world of darkness. If he is forced to live into darkness then he will make every digimon live in the same darkness.
"Enjoy yourselves while you can."
"I assume the mission went well?"
He turned around to see Piedmon standing in front of him with the crests in hand.
Piedmon nodded, "As you see I have the tags and crests."
"And what of the digi-eggs and digivices?"
Piedmon quickly looked away. Hmph. He knew that this pawn of a digimon would fail him in some manner.
"Gennai took the eggs and digivices and fled before we could catch him."
"Very well."
He snagged the crests from Piedmon and the jester flinched, obviously thinking he was going to be punished for his failure. Of course he was mad, but he still was pleased to have the tags and crests, the devices needed to make the digimon in the digieggs stronger. This was a small victory, but he still could not underestimate his adversaries. Who knew what they had up their sleeve.
"There is good news! On his escape, Gennai dropped the digiegg of the bearer of light. We don't know where it is, but neither does Gennai."
Good. He looked at the crests one by one. Courage, friendship, love, sincerity, knowledge, reliability, light, and hope. None of these crests were familiar to him. He never experienced friendship or love, never had a reason to be courageous or sincere, never had anyone to be reliable to, never had anyone to share his knowledge with, never able to experience the warmth of light. Those crests meant nothing to him. But hope... This was the one crest he could not stand. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was created by digimon who had the hope of digivolving but failed. Just the essence of hop made him sick to his stomach. This digidestined was going to be his first target. Yes, he will take out hope from the digidestineds and the rest will fall like flies.
Despair, the pure opposite of hope. That was what he was made out of, all that he has ever known. That is what he will make the bearer of hope feel. He will snuff out the hope in the digidestined before he ever has a chance to experience hope's power.
He waved his hands around and a dark fog swirled. He kept rotating his hands in a
circular motion, the dark fog becoming more and more concentrated. He stopped and in
his hand was a pitch-black orb.
"Devimon!"
"Yes sir."
"This is your mission. Take this and insert it into the bearer of hope."
"How do you expect me to know which one of those fools is the bearer of hope?"
He chuckled, even though he found none of this to be amusing. He couldn't feel amusement anyways. "He will be the smallest of the digidestineds, and he will be the one that destroys you in the end."
Devimon grunted in disagreement. "I will not be defeated, just watch and see. I'll destroy those..."
"Enough."
Devimon instantly closed his mouth. The digimon would be a fool to do otherwise.
"Do you understand your mission?"
"Yes," Devimon answered, clearly annoyed.
"Good, now leave."
Yes, hope will be the first to experience the darkness that he feels every day. That darkness will destroy every bit of hope in the boy, and then the digidestineds and the entire Digital World will experience the darkness.
"Matt!"
His scream echoed against the mountain behind him, but none of his friends answered. This was not good. The other digimon hadn't been able to defeat Devimon even though they were able to digivolve. Now it was just him and Patamon versus the giant Devimon. They didn't stand a chance, especially since Patamon couldn't digivolve.
"You will be mine!"
He pushed himself up off his chest only to see one of Devimon's giant claws heading straight for him and Patamon.
"Hey, get ready to run," he heard Matt utter weakly off to his side. It was too late though. There was no running away, and even if he could where would he run to? All of their adventures up till now had been fun and even though they've had some battles along the way they always came up on top. Against Shellmon it was Tai and Greymon who took the lead. And then his brother and Garurumon took the plate against Seadramon. But now who was going to step up?
Patamon tried a Boom Bubble to stop Devimon, but the little guy didn't stand a chance. He saw Patamon's worried expression and that only made him more worried. Devimon's claw was getting closer.
"Patamon help!" he yelled out desperately, tears falling from his eyes.
"I'll save you TK!"
Before he knew it he had to close his eyes from the blinding light. He thought he felt Devimon's claw close in around him, but then it released just as quickly.
"What?" he heard Devimon yell, and then Devimon roared out in pain.
The light grew dim and he opened his eyes to see a bright white light floating in the sky followed by his partner's voice.
"Patamon digivolve to... Angemon!"
He did it! Patamon digivolved! And he didn't digivolve to Porkymon thank goodness. In the sky was what looked like an angel who was surrounded by aura of white light. Could that really be his partner?
He heard the others utter some silly remarks, but he couldn't pay attention to them.
"What's this? Another foolish attempt?"
"The forces of good are more powerful, even you can't stop us!"
He was amazed at how mature his partner sounded.
"I'll destroy you and bring peace to the island!"
He felt a vibration in his pocket and realized it was his digivice. Then a white beam of light shot directly at Angemon from his digivice. The others' digivices were doing the same thing. It all was happening so fast and everything was so bright. He barely noticed the other digimon dedigivolve to their rookie forms.
"That light is so bright. What are you doing to me?"
He couldn't help but worry. What was Angemon going to do? For some reason he had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Stop it! I'm not going to allow you to take my power away! You'll have to fight me!"
That's what he was worried about.
"I'm afraid I have no other choice! If I can help others my fate is unimportant!"
His partner's remarks worried him even more.
"Angemon!"
"Your powers have gotten far out of control and must be extinguished. I am ready to fight for peace!"
"Now Ogremon!"
Ogremon jumped out of Devimon's stomach, which seemed really weird, but he couldn't think about that. Luckily the light around Angemon, which now was a mixture of gold and white, repelled Ogremon and the digimon flew away.
"Argh!"
He dropped to his knees, it felt like something had hit the back of his neck and went inside of him. The pain stopped, though, and he went back to watching the ongoing battle.
"Now you've done it!" Devimon said, almost sounding pleased. Why would Devimon be pleased with Ogremon when he did absolutely nothing. Maybe it had something to do with his neck hurting...
But he couldn't worry about that right now. Devimon was getting closer to Angemon, whose golden staff disappeared and was left with no weapon.
"Be careful!"
Angemon turned his head to the side and whispered, "I'll get him, relax."
"Come here pretty boy!"
Devimon's claws were going to crush Angemon. He could barely watch the battle.
"I'll stop you!"
Angemon thrust his arm forward like he was throwing a punch, and a golden beam of light shot from his fist and went straight thru Devimon. Then a white funnel cloud of light erupted. When it was dim enough for him to see, he saw both Devimon and Angemon floating in mid-air. Both of their bottom halves of their bodies were breaking into a million pieces, Devimon's into purple pieces and Angemon's into white.
"You have used up all your power! That wasn't very smart of you Angemon. Now you are of no use to anyone. You can't get away from the dark forces. Evil is everywhere, so don't savor your victory. There are other digimon that are just as powerful as I am, some of them are even stronger. I wonder what you'll do when you run into them."
Devimon's body was disappearing more and more. Now it was just his head and shoulders left.
"You haven't won at all! What a waste of time!"
Devimon laughed menacingly, but then he disappeared.
He looked back at Angemon who still had everything above his waist intact, but it was starting to change.
"Angemon!"
Angemon turned to him and offered a solemn smile.
"TK, I'll come back again, if you want me to."
This couldn't be happening. Patamon just digivolved and now he was disappearing before his very own eyes. He watched as the rest of Angemon's body broke into pieces and disappeared.
Tears rushed from his eyes. At that instant he heard a pop from inside of him and he started screaming out in agony. It felt like his body was being ripped apart into a million pieces, like something was being torn out of his very own soul. Then the pain stopped, at least the physical pain.
"Angemon!"
That was it. He never was going to see his partner ever again. Patamon had just learned how to digivolve and now he was gone, and there was nothing he could do to change that. If only he had been stronger, if only he could have helped Angemon in some way. Now he was never going to see Angemon again. What did it matter that they beat Devimon if he had to lose his friend. Defeating Devimon didn't make a difference if he was going to feel like this. And he was going to feel like this. All this despair, all this anger, all this... sadness. This was never going to leave him.
"You're right; you are going to feel this way forever. You are pathetic, useless, and your partner is never going to come back to you."
He didn't want to believe the words he heard inside his head. He shouted in reply, "You're wrong!"
Laughter. "Am I now? Why would your partner want to return to you when you weren't even strong enough to protect him?"
He knew the voice was right, but he couldn't accept the fact that Patamon was gone forever. Angemon said that he'd come back if he wanted him to. He definitely wanted Angemon to come back.
"No! Your digimon partner is gone! Destroyed!"
He shouted right back. "No! Angemon!"
He put all of his hope into that scream. He tried as hard as he could to will his partner back to him. He felt something inside of him protest and the pain from before returned, but he kept his mind focused on Angemon.
"Stop it child! Just give up!"
"No, I won't!"
At that moment the pain and the voice inside his head stopped. He put his hands on the ground to brace himself and he breathed heavily trying to catch his breath. Sweat was rolling down his face and dripping to the ground.
He noticed his eyes were clenched and decided it was safe to open them. When he did he saw a bunch of white feathers land in front of him. Once they landed in a neat pile, they started glowing and turned into something that resembled an egg.
"Impressive child, but I am not done with you yet. The orb has been planted and the darkness is already spreading inside of you. You don't stand a chance!"
The voice started laughing and faded away. He didn't notice he was trembling until his brother put his hands on his shoulders and tugged him in for a tight embrace.
"What do you know, it's a digi-egg!"
"Do you think it could be Angemon?" he asked to no one in particular.
"I know it is! He's just resting for a while to regain his strength."
"But don't worry. You'll see him again when he digivolves!"
"I will make sure to take really good care of him," he said as he picked up the egg and brought it in for a hug. "You saved my life Angemon!"
"Look, the island is coming back together again!"
He ignored the others dialogue as he focused on the egg, his partner. Patamon had come back for him, even though he wasn't strong enough to protect him. The voice was wrong, he wasn't going to be alone.
"Something's happening!"
This sparked his interest as a boulder that was in front of the group crumbled and projected a hologram of an old man.
"Ah, I've heard of you kids. And I can say I'm pleased."
Another complication in this weird world. More evil digimon that Devimon and Leomon alluded to, the searing pain and evil voice inside his head, and now this old, bearded man. But as long as he got Patamon back everything would work out alright. Wouldn't it?