Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Digimon Adventure 02
Title: Captive: Chapter 1: Lost
Characters: Ken, Daisuke
Word Count: chapter: 2,269||story: 2,269
Genre: Drama, Friendship||Rated: PG
Notes: This takes place during the Digimon Kaiser arc, after everyone has their second Digimental. This was also written for three what-if challenges: what if the Evil Rings/Spirals could be used to control humans, what if Daisuke were captured by the Digimon Kaiser, and what if Daisuke got lost in the Digital World during one of their trips? It's also my entry for the Summer/Autumn Event 2014 at the Digimon Fanfiction Challenge forum.
Summary: [1/20, Ken & Daisuke, What-if Challenge & Summer/Autumn Event 2014] Daisuke knows fun. Being lost in the Digital World and found by his mortal enemy? That is not fun. At all.
Motomiya Daisuke knew what fun was. He'd had fun before, many times in his eleven years of life. Fun involved hanging out with his friends, playing soccer, watching television with his family, and these days, taking trips to the Digital World. Fun involved knocking down the Digimon Kaiser's control spires and seeing him rant and rave about it.
Fun did not involve getting slammed with an entire herd of Tyrannomon with Evil Spirals on and having to run for his life while Raidramon blasted them with everything that he had. Fun really didn't involve not just running for his life, but running until he couldn't breathe and realizing that he didn't know where in the Digital World he was anymore.
He closed his eyes, leaned against a tree, and did what he could to catch his breath. He did a good job of it; all of his years in sports came in handy.
"Okay," he muttered to himself as he started to calm down. "I need to get back there." His friends needed him. Raidramon could fight pretty well on his own, but what if they needed to change to FlaDramon or something? What if the Kaiser had caught them, for real this time?
Daisuke didn't like thinking about that particular little adventure. Bowing down to Ken hadn't bothered him nearly as much as the thought that his friends might die a horrible screaming death and there wasn't anything he could've done about it.
So, he needed to get back there and make certain that everyone was all right.
Maybe once he found something to drink first. He rubbed his throat; why didn't they bring drinks with them on trips like this? After all that running, he really needed something cold. Summer was still a few weeks away, but it was hot here in the Digital World, which didn't help at all.
There were two sources of refreshments he could find. One was a random refrigerator that might or might not have something like milk or lemonade or soda or tea in it. Those were chancy and sometimes they'd come across ones that had unopened but empty cans. Daisuke privately considered those to be absolute cheats.
Miyako publicly considered them the same thing, and had declared so more than once at the top of her lungs. Daisuke kind of hoped that he'd hear her doing so any second now. It would make find them that much easier if she'd bellow for him.
The other chance for something to drink was a lot likelier: simply finding a stream or river of some kind. Digital water tasted just as good as water from Earth and once in a while it even came in flavors. Takeru insisted that he'd found a lemonade spring once, but he'd never been able to remember where it was.
As fast as he's been running, and as little attention as he'd paid to where he was going, Daisuke had to sort of guess which way he'd come from. Then he almost smacked himself and dug his D-Terminal out of his pocket. A few quick flicks of his fingers sent a message off to everyone else.
Hey, guys! I'm on the way back. Might take me a while, but I'll be there soon! He fully expected some kind of quick reply, probably from Miyako with her typical exasperation about how only he could get lost when trying to save himself from being eaten.
What he didn't expect, and what he got, was a small beeping sound from the device and an error message.
Message not sent? Daisuke tapped it again. This kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen.
Again the error message flicked onto his screen. A thin thread of fear wormed its way down Daisuke's spine and he took a careful look around. Something wasn't right. He didn't know what it was, but he didn't like it, and he wanted to get out of here and back to the others even faster.
What he liked even less was the sudden feeling that someone was watching him. There were probably Digimon he couldn't see hiding all over the place. Most Digimon hid anytime there was any chance that the Kaiser could be in the area, and Daisuke didn't think he'd ran that far from where the battle had broken out. So it wasn't too much of a stretch to guess that Ken could be around.
Though wouldn't he be concentrating on saving his precious spire? Daisuke kind of thought that was how he'd think, but he couldn't be sure. Figuring out how Ken thought gave him a headache.
He took another look around. He couldn't see any of the spires in the area anyway, and certainly not the one they'd been attacking. Some of the areas were close together enough so that they could, and frequently did, cross from one to the other without even noticing it, so that wasn't much of a surprise, if it was what had happened.
I looked at the map before we got here. All the areas around here were under his control. There wasn't supposed to be a free area for miles. And he knew that he hadn't run for miles.
Daisuke moved carefully. If there were Digimon with Evil Rings or Spirals in the area, he didn't want to run across them, not when he didn't have his partner with him. He was pretty sure that a good swift kick wouldn't do a lot of good when it came to breaking one of those.
Well, maybe it would. He had to grin at the thought. I don't think I've tried it yet.
He wasn't sure offhand if he really wanted to, but running out to find the nearest Ringed or Spiralled Digimon was a little too reckless even for Daisuke. At least doing it alone. Once I find the others, then I'll do it. He liked the notion, now that it had occurred to him, and it gave a little extra spring to his step as he kept moving, trying to find his own backtrail.
The feeling of eyes watching him hadn't stopped for a moment. If anything, it got worse as he worked his way back. He kept trying to send his message to the others, but every time, the same error occurred. Daisuke wasn't the same kind of book-smart as Koushirou or Miyako was, but he knew something was up. Something that he really didn't like.
Something that reeked far too strongly of the Digimon Kaiser and his tricks than anything else.
"Are you around here?" Daisuke didn't want to shout. Under any other circumstances, he would have. He would've bellowed the question at the top of his lungs and demanded answers from anything or anyone that dared to present itself. But the longer he remained without V-mon, the more it began to trickle into his mind that a human alone in the Digital World was a human in a great deal of danger.
Especially when that human was him, and the Digimon Kaiser had more than once displayed something that other people might call a bit of an obsession with humiliating him.
He still hadn't found anything to drink, and that irked him almost as much as the persistent feeling that someone was watching him. He thought it probably annoyed him more, because with someone watching him, he'd be able to punch them out sooner or later. Or at least find out who it was. But when it came to something to drink, the odds of doing that depended either on finding a stream or a television set so he could head back to Earth and the school water fountains.
Okay, he'd look for his friends first and foremost. Once he found them, then he could go back and get something to drink, or see if any of them knew where he could get a good drink here. And that was if he didn't find one while he was looking for them.
He took another look around as he kept moving. No one had answered his question, and he wasn't very unhappy about that. He'd almost never been afraid while in the Digital World and he didn't like feeling that way now.
But that sensation of being watched hadn't faded at all, and he picked up his place just a little more. The sooner he got back to everyone else the better.
The more he walked, though, the more he found himself hoping that he could get back to them. With his D-Terminal unable to send a message, they wouldn't know he was coming or what had happened to him.
So, they're gonna start looking, right? They'd use their… and Daisuke smacked himself in the face. He knew he wasn't the smartest person to ever strut around in two worlds, but he should've figured out to use his D-3 a lot sooner than he had. He tugged it out of his pants and checked for other signals.
There weren't any.
"There's no way I ran that far." There was a range on these things, but he couldn't think of what it was, but even when they couldn't see each other, he knew the D-3s could pick each other up. Something he didn't like at all was going on here.
He didn't put the D-3 away, though. Maybe if he just kept going, he'd find a signal. Someone's signal, anyway. He couldn't remember having ever picked up Ken's on any other trip here. For right now that meant that the Kaiser wasn't in the area or he was somehow hidden from them.
Daisuke stopped in his tracks a few minutes later, staring at the far too inviting stream that wended its way through a clearing. He knew he hadn't seen it on his mad dash to avoid getting eaten or worse, because he would've noticed splashing through it.
Did I take a wrong turn? That wasn't impossible. He hadn't marked his trail going out, and the grass and moss of the Digital World were so thick here that he couldn't find any footprints he might've left behind.
He tucked his D-3 and D-Terminal back into his pockets and headed over to the stream. He'd at least be able to get that drink before he tried to figure out where he was. That was something, at least.
"If I'd known I was going to get lost, I would've brought a cup with me," he muttered to himself, scooping up a handful of water and letting it trickle into his mouth. He was pretty sure that wouldn't have made sense to anyone but him, but since he was the only person there to hear himself, it didn't need to make sense to anyone else.
"I would think if you'd known you were going to get lost, you would've brought a useful map." A voice he would've paid money not to hear right now came from behind him. Daisuke froze where he was. "I wouldn't make any sudden moves if I were you. Of course, if I were you, I wouldn't be in this situation to begin with, since I would know better than to fight me."
"That didn't make any sense." Daisuke refused to turn around just yet. If he didn't see Ken for himself, then perhaps Ken wouldn't actually be there. Maybe the water did something to his head. He'd much rather believe something like that than be on the verge of being captured by his mortal enemy. He'd been caught before. He hadn't liked it any other time and he didn't see why this should be any different.
"Perhaps not to you, but I wouldn't expect it to. Not with your level of intellect." It was amazing how quickly Ken's slightest words could make Daisuke want to turn around and punch him. For that matter, he suddenly couldn't see any reason why he didn't do just that right now.
He whirled, hoping he was too fast for Ken to do anything to stop him, and rammed one fist directly toward the Digimon Kaiser.
He should've remembered the only time he'd ever been able to get a punch on Ken had been when the other hadn't expected him to strike at all. Ken moved smoothly backward, one foot slipping forward to catch around Daisuke's ankle, and jerked, sending the Chosen Child tumbling toward the ground.
"Is that the best you can do?" Ken shook his head, setting one foot onto Daisuke's back and grinding until Daisuke had to fight to breathe. "This is almost too easy."
"Sorry to disappoint you." Daisuke lied, struggling to push the other back and having no success. Ken wasn't bulky by any means, but there was plenty of muscle there to keep Daisuke down, and Daisuke himself wasn't in any position to do more than squirm fruitlessly.
"I'm sure you are." Ken chuckled, a sound that sent shudders all through his opponent. "But you won't be for much longer."
Daisuke managed to wiggle around just enough so he could look at the other. "What are you talking about? I won't be sorry much longer? Or I won't disappoint you?" He wanted to take any chance he could to at least distract Ken. Maybe that would help. Somehow.
Ken only smiled, a look that made Daisuke want to get out of there even more. "You won't disappoint me much longer. I'm conducting an experiment, Motomiya, and you're going to help me."
"Not interested."
Ken's whip uncurled and he snapped it forward, the lash wrapping around Daisuke's throat and tightening into a makeshift leash. "I wasn't asking."
To Be Continued