A collection of sequential scenes in the Tamers universe. They won't make much sense unless you know the plot of the Wonderswan games – you can find summaries, translations and other info at syldra dot net slash yesterday.
While humans don't have destined partners in the Tamers timeline, Ryo is from the Adventure timeline. He lost the partner lottery, and lost it hard. After a four-game-long Break The Cutie, first he went completely nonverbal from the PTSD and then his mind basically NOPE'd out of reality and all his memories in self-defense.
I found myself writing this thing that couldn't make up its mind if it wanted to be a For Want Of A Nail where Monodramon got his memories back and nearly pulled Summon Bigger Fish on the D-Reaper, a plot for the Tamers reuniting with their partners and having to stop an angry god from killing Dr. Janyu Wong or I don't even know. Still, I found the scenes interesting to think about – I like toying with worldbuilding and characterization – and it seemed to be a shame to scrap some of them in the interests of fitting this into a multi-character plot.
I kept it in my documents folder until I decided what to do with it, but it seems determined to remain a collection of shiny beads on a string, so I will go ahead and post in case anyone else finds it shiny. I got dragged into writing for Ryo and Millenniummon since most of the what-ifs I wanted to see explored didn't exist – I can hope that posting the stabs I've taken at some of those what-ifs either inspires other writers or saves other people from the AARGH of craving fic and not being able to read it.
Searching inside, starting from the place Ryo appeared when they biomerged, Monodramon found it-him-in his bond with Ryo.
Well, of course that was where Millenniummon would want to be, he thought for a moment, but no.
This digicore hadn't insinuated itself into Monodramon's bond with Ryo. Millenniummon's core was his bond with Ryo.
Millenniummon was Ryo's true partner, and since Monodramon and Millenniummon were DNA Digivolved, they were bound together too. Monodramon was connected to Ryo only through Millenniummon.
But the core was dim.
Dead, he thought at first glance. Maybe the Evil God really was dead, after all those attempts to kill him. Maybe Ryo fighting him even after Ryo knew they were partners, maybe being sealed in that moment of despair had finally finished him off and Monodramon didn't know how to feel. Millenniummon was the threat to Ryo he'd vaguely remembered all of that time, the enemy he'd sensed that wanted his partner, but then he remembered the beginning of the DNA Digivolution, the despair at Millenniummon's core, envying Monodramon his place at Ryo's side so much that the evil Digimon's heart was willing to become one with Monodramon, just to be with Ryo.
Monodramon had done it because well, it was a chance. A chance to free his friend Ryo from the fate of having to fight his partner eternally. He hadn't known if he could really keep Millenniummon sealed. Maybe Millenniummon would seal him instead, and all Monodramon's gamble would accomplish was letting Millenniummon pretend to be him and do terrible things to Ryo. When he merged with Millenniummon, he hadn't known if he would ever wake up again.
Instead, Monodramon was the only one to wake up.
What it meant for someone's heart to choose to be sealed away? Millenniummon's conscious mind hadn't wanted to be imprisoned. Sleeping forever was the closest a Digimon like him could come to death.
Millenniummon couldn't die, not as long as Ryo lived, and even the most evil of Digimon couldn't bear to kill his partner. So the ENIAC had sent Monodramon to tempt him with… what? A place by Ryo's side, even if he would never be allowed to speak with or bother Ryo again?
Eternal slumber?
Could someone like Millenniummon really feel guilt for harming Ryo, even if only in his heart instead of his mind?
For a moment he felt sympathy for the evil god: thinking of missing Ryo for so long, only seeing Ryo when Ryo wanted to kill him, remembering how Millenniummon really believed that the only time he could ever see Ryo was when Ryo wanted to kill him, that there was no alternative to fighting Ryo over and over unless he reordered all of time because Ryo would never accept him unless everything changed, and it hurt.
The pain flared along his bond to Ryo – no, with Millenniummon – and he saw the digicore contract in agony. They shared the same body, so their feelings should affect each other.
His berserk rages, the desire to kill anything that got in his path until he found the threat to Ryo… that had to be Millenniummon's influence. Right?
But that meant the will of Millenniummon's heart was for Monodramon to kill the threat to Ryo. For Monodramon to kill him. Did the evil god – did Ryo's partner – really want to die?
He walked closer to the core and touched the elaborate golden swirls of digicode. It was almost a relief to see they were moving, even if they were moving so, so slowly. Like Ryo's heartbeat, like his breathing when he was asleep and wasn't having a nightmare.
They didn't want to let him through, but Millenniummon couldn't keep Monodramon out of his heart, not when they were merged like this. Not back then, when Monodramon had Ryo's help to weaken Millenniummon until he was too exhausted to fight anymore.
The golden code finally parted.
He'd been expecting MoonMillenniummon: that was what Ryo found inside Millenniummon's heart, when he and Ken went in there to try to kill his core so he couldn't come back to life anymore. There was even enough space in here for ZiydMillenniummon. Instead, there was something much smaller curled up in the distance.
Some kind of dragon Digimon. Not one Monodramon recognized even when he walked closer, not without a digivice. He looked rookie level, about Monodramon's size. His wings and horns were red, but more flame-colored than blood colored, and the rest of him was light blue-green with a white belly.
Monodramon sat on his haunches next to him. He didn't know what to call him, so he had to go with, "Hey, wake up." When there wasn't any response he nudged the Digimon's shoulder, once, then again, a little harder.
"Why are you…?" Millenniummon's rookie form asked, voice soft and slow and tired. Red eyes opened, only the tiniest crack, before drooping shut again. "I don't want to wake up…"
"You don't want to wake up? Ever?" Had he really lost all hope? Digimon that lost all hope were absorbed by Apocalymon, and if he got his hands on a Digimon like ZiydMillenniummon?! The thought made Monodramon shudder. Did they have Apocalymon in this universe, though? He wished he could ask the ENIAC, but without Digidestined besides Ryo, how would they handle Apocalymon breaking loose on top of the D-Reaper?!
"I don't want to go back. Ryo is here, and it's warm. I'm not alone. If I wake up, he'll hate me. Everything will go back to the way it was. I'll be cold again, and empty, and Ryo will hate me."
A pulse of agony, longing, despairing need, the knowledge that the desperate wish would never be granted, despair that wasn't howling because there would be no answer to its cries tore through Monodramon as the digicore convulsed around him. They weren't just sharing a body now: he was inside Millenniummon's heart. It should have been a good thing, he could be sure that the Evil God wasn't lying to him, but it hurt.
This was the part of Ryo's enemy that initiated the DNA digivolution while the rest of him raged against it. The part that had sabotaged the Evil God every time he tried to harm Ryo, that was willing to lose everything just to be by his partner's side.
"It's not like that now," the other dragon said, and with their emotions linked felt it comforting even if it wasn't said to comfort Monodramon. "Ryo is with me, even if it's only because he has to be with me to be with you. Our bond is open, and it's warm and I was starving for so long, but now there are Ryo's," precious, "feelings, and your feelings flowing through me. Please don't make me wake up."
"Ryo needs you," Monodramon said.
That forced red eyes open again, and there were emotions Monodramon would have expected to see on Millenniummon's face only a little less than the peace and contentment there when he focused on his bond with Ryo. "A necessary evil is still an evil. If Ryo needs my power, he will resent it. He must have thought… I wanted him to know… please tell him that I will never bother him again. Please, I just want to stay here," Ryo's enemy, Ryo's partner, the evil god begged him, with nothing in those eyes but need. "Is this… are you here because he wants me to separate?" Please let it not be so. "He wants, he must want to send me away."
"He doesn't have to know you're awake," Monodramon rushed to tell him, feeling that desperation driven by the fear of agonized loneliness grip his own heart. "I don't want Ryo to be scared. We're fighting another god. It's not a human or a Digimon, but it spawned its own realm, just like the ENIAC did."
"A god… A god would possess the power of miracles. A god could hurt Ryo, like I could have hurt Ryo if he wasn't my partner." Shuddering, the small dragon curled up tighter. "Ryo needs me," he whispered, and felt despair instead of hope.
Because to this Millenniummon, Ryo needing him wasn't leverage, something he could use to extort things from Ryo, the way Monodramon had feared. Ryo needing him was a reason he might have to wake up, might have to remind Ryo he existed.
Monodramon winced. "Would you feel Ryo's hate?"
"I've felt it, even when the bond was nothing but a thread. I, I… feeling his hate was better than never seeing him at all. Than never feeling anything. Heated passion at my core, and I didn't care that it burned because it warmed. I longed for him to come for me, I was grateful to the Sovereign for sending him to kill me as soon as I woke up, I waited for him to come to me in the future. I'd rather feel his hate than feel him try to suppress our bond. Than be sent away. I long for him, and as long as he lives, I can't die. Sleeping here, connected to his heart… I, I'm happy, and my happiness becomes his happiness."
Love.
"Thank you," the Digimon said, uncurling a little. "For waking me up, at least this much. I felt that we were connected in my dreams, but now I know. I, my happiness can make him happier. My love lets him know in his soul that he is loved, instead of being something that would terrify him and maybe drive him to flee me instead of fight me," meaning he would never see Ryo at all. "My empire, my knowledge, none of it ever mattered. All of it, to find Ryo, but by the time I found him I had forgotten that. I was too twisted to do anything but hurt him. By sealing me, you granted the wish I had when I wore this form, and searched the Digital world for the something I needed like air, the something more precious than chrome digizoid. I'm finally by his side," and it was bliss.
"You love him, but you won't wake up for him? You won't risk his rejection, won't risk what you want, even in order to save his life?"
Red eyes met Monodramon's, searching them for something, and seeing it Dracomon's eyes became empty, a wall slamming down to hide emotions that he couldn't conceal from their shared heart. Silence, and in the silence despair. Not a raging despair, not a denial. Not a scream, not a whimper. Silence. Surrender.
Surrender to the inevitability of heartbreak. Red eyes reopened, and in them was a hint of iron. Something cold and hard, a piece of the will that tried to break all of history apart if that was what it took to be with his partner. Summoned up for only one purpose: "What does Ryo need?"
Monodramon had to hug him. He wondered if it was betraying Ryo, was betraying the ENIAC when Millenniummon tried to kill his creator, but they were DNA Digivolution partners now, and that was something just as real as Monodramon's partnership with Ryo.
No. More real.
"What's your name?" he asked. "Like this."
"Dracomon." There was something curt about the answer. Not quite impatient, but Monodramon claimed it was urgent enough to risk awakening him, and now he wanted… what even? Making friends?
"I've never seen a dragon Digimon like you before."
"My evolutionary line was eliminated down to the Petitmon, killed over and over until all of them either mutated and began to take different forms or despaired and became one with Apocalymon." Seeing Monodramon's horror, Dracomon smiled pityingly. "My victims knew that the Machine Emperor kept returning, over and over, and they wanted to finally be free of me, to no longer have to live in fear. Little did they know I'd already reprogrammed my early evolutions to be something less distinctive." He shook his head, still smiling that pitying smile. "Don't empathize with me, Monodramon. Don't try to make friends: I'm not capable of it. It has been thousands of years since I last regretted hurting anyone but Ryo. Don't think it's possible for Ryo to forgive me. No one could forgive me, if they knew everything I've done, and Ryo has such a heroic soul…"
"Ryo's the one who does the impossible, right?"
It should have been mocking laughter, not something that sounded more like sobs… No. That was sobbing, barely disguised. "Hope is one of the cruelest blades in a torturer's arsenal. That too, I know from experience, Monodramon. It is miracle enough that Ryo came to me from the other end of time, that I was ever able to be by his side. To hope for anything more… I would, if only Ryo would enjoy my suffering."
"He wouldn't!"
"I know. I can never be forgiven, because forgiveness requires repentance, and I cannot be sorry for what I have done to anyone but Ryo. I cannot atone by suffering, because Ryo is too pure to enjoy even my pain. I've ripped the scales from my flesh and poured liquid metal in place of my bones for the sake of power, Monodramon. I would do it gladly to remain by his side. I now know what it is to be by his side. I now know what it is to be full instead of empty, warm instead of cold. It is more wonderful than I ever dreamed, and I cannot go back. I cannot go back to living without him, but if he chooses to send me away there's nothing I can do. I can't kill myself, I will always come back to that bleak existence until I need him so much I'd kill an entire world just to make him come to me, just so he'll look at me with some emotion, any emotion, in his eyes." Red eyes smiled. "Don't forget I'm a monster."
Wait a minute. Monodramon folded his arms. "You just want to make sure I keep you sealed away after this."
"Also true."
Amusement and affection, that was what came with those words, and Dracomon – Millenniummon – couldn't know the second was there, not when it undermined what he was trying to do.
It's not the same as how Millenniummon feels about Ryo. The thought that Monodramon is a clever child is less than a flash of lightning in the night in the distance, there and gone but without even the crack of thunder to draw attention to it. Ryo is the endless sea.
How long ago had Millenniummon lost the battle to stay afloat, let his lungs fill with water and sink down into the depths?
It's his love for Ryo that keeps Millenniummon asleep, not Monodramon's seal. Now that Monodramon is quiet again, Dracomon has closed his eyes, and Monodramon can feel how this core pulses in time with Ryo's heart, how Ryo's every breath and dreaming thought soothes the hateful god. Monodramon has never been on an ocean, but that's the only way he can imagine it: looking over the side of some fragile craft to see the evil god adrift in the depths, at the mercy of every current, without the strength or will to struggle for breath or shore. The water that ate away at the shore washing away everything, all the things Millenniummon threw away to be here, thoughts of empire and godhood alike.
A human would drown if they let water fill their lungs, but a water Digimon would feel rejuvenated. Love must be poison to an evil Digimon, he'd seen how it drove Millenniummon to madness, made him let Ryo kill him, but…
Ryo is wonderful, Monodramon knows. So strong, to still be willing to save the ENIAC after everything that happened, everything that drove him to silence. Ryo makes impossible things happen, that's simple fact, so he knows that Ryo could redeem even an Evil God, just like Ryo was the only one who could defeat him.
A war isn't over until the enemy dies or surrenders, and when dying wasn't enough to end the war, even at Ryo's hands, Millenniummon's heart surrendered.
Wait.
He nudged the already-dozing dragon. "Do you still have the power to help Ryo? Are you a god anymore?" Or had that evil power already been washed away?
A snort. "I'm not a god now, but it would be rookie's play to become one again. I know more about the Digital Worlds than Azulongmon's pets could have ever dreamed. Knowledge isn't power, but it puts power at my fingertips. I will gain exactly as much as I have to for Ryo's sake, and no more."
Right, Ryo wouldn't like it if Millenniummon got his full power back, not with what he'd done with it before. "But we're not in our Digital world, or even the human world attacked to our digital world!"
The other dragon rubbed at an eye sleepily with the back of a clawed hand. "I know. We're in the world I created when I wished to change history so that Digimon no longer came into existence bound to humans." So Millenniummon didn't need Ryo like a human needed air. "My armies invaded this world as well as the one where I was born: I captured their greatest minds and stuck dark spores into them so they would analyze this timeline for me and help me obtain the data I needed to create the true history I wished for." He yawned. "How long has it been? What year is it…" Monodramon saw the light of realization, even if it was an 'oh please' moment instead of an 'aha!' moment. "Tell me this isn't the D-Reaper," Dracomon said, sounding annoyed.
"You know about the D-Reaper? Right, you invaded this world in the future, three years from now, and if Takato was still alive to fight you they must have beaten the D-Reaper!"
"Ta- Ah yes, the boy with the Megidramon." Another yawn. "He was alive when I invaded this world, but not for very long. I cloned his remains because his partner attained a divine evolution, even if one barely any stronger than the Sovereign. And because he was a brown-haired boy with a dragon partner, of course. Seeing him killed accidentally by his partner's rage…" Monodramon felt his own chest clench, and knew why Dracomon changed the subject. "You woke me up for something the inhabitants of this timeline can handle on their own? If they have Ryo to lead them, there's no way even a world where all the Digimon are ignorant children can possibly fail to survive."
Monodramon put a hand on Dracomon's shoulder and shook it. "But how did they kill it? Don't just say they'll figure it out eventually, you have to know and Ryo's sick of having to go to war and watch Digimon get killed because he can't always pull off a miracle!" Ryo could make things possible, but he couldn't make them likely, and no matter how good a tactician he wasn't all-powerful.
Monodramon didn't know what the Sovereign in their world were thinking, forcing Ryo into orchestrated battles where there was no way out but to let a Digimon sacrifice themselves before sending him to face MoonMillenniummon for a second time. It wasn't as though Ryo didn't know that Digimon were dying, that he couldn't…
Was it meant to convince him that it was necessary to make sacrifices? And who was he supposed to sacrifice? His partner… or himself?
Was that what made Ryo shut down like that? Had he realized that they wanted him to die and take MoonMillenniummon with him… somehow?
And it would seem like they'd gotten their way, when that place blew up and Ryo and the Evil God never came back! Oooooh, Monodramon wanted to go back to the future of his world sometime just to give them a piece of his mind! They were gods and had the responsibility of protecting the Digital World: so? He was a child of the ENIAC, with the exact same responsibility, and he didn't make someone else sacrifice themselves to do what he wanted!
His creator might have made Monodramon knowing that Monodramon would make that choice, but the ENIAC hadn't asked anything of Monodramon he wasn't doing himself. The ENIAC pretended to be the first Digital Computer and the core of the Digital World so MIllenniummon's assassins would come after him instead of Atanasoff-Berry, and they… he…
His creator was barely holding on when Monodramon and Ryo left, and Monodramon didn't know what happened to him afterwards. He was dying, and he'd taken on the task of sending them into the future and keeping history stable enough for that?
"It's not hard," Dracomon said, pushing at Monodramon's hand with a limp paw, still weak from slumber. "I could kill it in an instant as ZiydMillenniummon. Even those insects could figure out some method on their own, you don't need me for this."
"Well, aren't you arrogant, thinking that calling on you to fight another god is overkill." Speaking of killing gods so casually. He'd probably been just as casual and uncaring about sending those clones he'd made to tear apart Monodramon's creator.
"I've been defeating Gods since long before I attained godhood myself. Just being a god doesn't mean anything about how hard an enemy is to kill. The ENIAC, for example, was absolutely helpless once my creations got past its protectors." A tiny yawn, and Dracomon lifted his taloned paw to cover his mouth. "Just because another god and whoever they've gotten to do the actual fighting stands some chance against me doesn't mean that chance might not be a snowball's in hell… Blasted Homeostasis. Blasted Dramon Destroyers… It only worked because the power of miracles is Ryo's power." Resentment was overridden by a moment of longing. "It didn't hurt, I didn't feel it kill me, because my core recognized it… but it wasn't Ryo."
"How dare the protector of the Digital World trick you." Monodramon rolled his eyes and tried to bury his resentment, but if they were already on a tangent…
"You know nothing, you never will since you have no true partner, and I would have killed you for your possession of a treasure you will never truly appreciate. Don't tempt me, I need you intact in order to stay with Ryo," Dracomon grumbled for a moment before finally being helpful, probably so Mondramon would go away. "The D-Reaper was a single entity that dwells in the dimension that in the other timeline is occupied by the Dark Ocean. The main humans that figured out how those with Digimon could go there and attack it were the Monster Maker with the Greymon partner and…" Another yawn. "One of the ones that died before my useless servants could capture them and stick a dark seed into them. Maybe one or two of them, I didn't particularly care. Go there, negate its power, attack a weak point, attack with something it can't guard against, something along those lines. Just think of something; you aren't worthy to stand at Ryo's side if you're going to get intimidated by a god that was killed by a bunch of amateurs. You've stood against me, and the D-Reaper is a brainless creature that does whatever its current programming tells it to do. Just don't let it possess anyone intelligent. "
"It can possess people?"
Dracomon opened an eye to give him a look that said 'really? You haven't already noticed this?' "I'll assume it's only taken Digimon so far, and no one's noticed any increase in intelligence because there wasn't anyone intelligent for it to absorb. If this timeline has an equivalent of Ken Ichijoji, maybe you should feed him to the D-Reaper. He managed to effectively lobotomize the Dark Seed, and that was my programming. How appropriate that the most pathetic Digimon ever had the most pathetic partner ever, and Gennai thinks that was worth summoning to deal with me?"
"Hey, Ken is Ryo's friend, you know!" Monodramon grinned when he felt Dracomon's reaction. "You're jealous."
Millenniummon was huffy now. Millenniummon! "I'm not capable of friendship. Until I found Ryo, I thought that was a good thing. But you can give Ryo a friend, and hopefully being merged with me will make you a less… a less insulting partner to give Ryo than that Agumon and that Veemon. If I'm part of you, then at least part of you is worthy of him." His tail lashed once. "As long as Ryo is happy, we will continue to follow your evolutionary path. If you are unable to protect Ryo from rage and despair, and his pain fuels a dark digivolution, I will emerge, in all my power, to rewind the clock and annihilate whatever would have caused him that pain. Until and unless that happens, let Ryo enjoy the fruit of his battles, and live a happy life without my shadow hanging over it. The D-Reaper," he scoffed. "It's an embarrassment that someone who stood against me considers a bit of malfunctional code a significant threat, god or no god. Digimon up, you pitiful excuse for a dragon. Are you the ENIAC's agent, created as a worthy partner for the Child of Miracles himself or not? Next you'll come begging for my help to deal with Daemon, Dagomon or Malomyotismon."
That… was a worryingly long list. "Who are they?" Monodramon asked.
"A bunch of thieves and copycats who will never have an original idea in their short, pathetic lives," Dracomon growled. "Don't worry, the Digidestined will have no trouble at all with them. The only one who survived to 2004 to be persecuted for copyright infringement was Dagomon, and he survived by having the sense to realize he was outnumbered and cowering in the Dark Ocean."
Daemon, as in Demon? The Dark Ocean? And Myotismon, he was the subject of the prophecy about the Child of Light! But Malomyotismon didn't sound familiar: wasn't his mega form VenomMyotismon? So he was going to gain another, more powerful form, like Millenniummon?!
"There's no need to be concerned for your creator, Child of the ENIAC," Dracomon told him, solely to make him stop being so easily frightened. "Those three… instead of pursuing their own plans, they decided to go digging through my garbage and then fight each other over a single piece of discarded technology that they were somehow deluded enough to believe would grant them a godhood equal to mine. It would make me despair for the future of evil Digimon if they ever had a future other than as my hacked and brainwashed slaves. I'd show you footage from my dark network," he yawned again, exposing fangs that looked worryingly normal to a dragon like Monodramon – they should have been sharper, larger, more evil, "but I left behind the majority of my stored data to merge with you."
"Are you sure the other Digidestined and our world are going to be okay?"
"Well, it's impossible to overestimate the ability of fools to get themselves killed, but there are no threats to that world worth mentioning."
"You just mentioned three evil Digimon trying to become gods."
"They are worth mocking, not worth mentioning." Dracomon rolled flame-red eyes. "The entire point of this conversation was that the Digimon who sealed me should have more respect for themselves than to consider the Three Stooges and the D-Recycle Bin anything to get worked up about. Certainly not enough to risk disturbing me. Has my slumber given you time to forget, Monodramon? Did you mistake silence for weakness?"
"…I did. Forget. I didn't remember anything when I hatched here. I… I don't know about Ryo. The ENIAC thought that you'd traumatized him enough to make him forget everything that happened when he landed in our time, and that was before you told him that it was his partner who made him go through all that! I don't know if Ryo's forgotten, or forgotten again, or he's pretending everything's okay, but if he's forgotten I don't want him to have to remember! I remembered for Ryo's sake, but I want to stop the D-Reaper before he remembers for my sake!"
"Ryo… may have forgotten me?" Dracomon asked slowly, and Monodramon paled. "Ryo, forget our battles?"
The words hung in the air, but the fury Monodramon expected to engulf them never came.
Instead Dracomon sighed. "Almost certainly not. Fate has never been that kind to Ryo. But, if there is any chance… I will wake, and watch through your eyes to see if there is anything I can do to hurry along these primitives. But I won't use my power to help you, or do anything at all that might remind Ryo of my existence."
"You want him to forget?" No, more than that, "What is it that you want, Millenniummon?"
"…You mean if all things were possible, or if I was willing to pay any price?" Dracomon shook his head. "I cannot want anything that Ryo would have to pay the price for, not any longer, and since he is so noble, a cost borne by the world would wound his soul. So, then, the only thing that I can wish for is to sleep at Ryo's side, while he lives a long, happy life as humans count such things. And, in the end, when at last he dies, our bond will anchor my dreaming soul to his drowning one, and I will be pulled with him wherever he goes, even into nonexistence."
"So you do want to die," Monodramon said in a quiet voice.
"I am thousands of years old, child. I searched, without any idea what for, if there was anything out there worthwhile, worth living for, and yet I could not die. When I finally found the one I searched for, I found that my search had rendered me unable to be with him. If I am dead, I will never have to fear waking again to find myself alone. You do not understand because you are not Ryo's partner. You will never know what it is to cry alone in the desert night, searching the empty places of the world because seeing people together gnaws you down to the bone, centimeter by centimeter,and you know not why. When I realized that Ryo was my partner, my life began to make sense, and at first it filled me with manic hope but then, oh, what a terrible clarity it brought. Truth is almost as cruel a blade in a torturer's hand as hope. When Ryo dies, you will mourn the loss of a priceless treasure, dragon child, but you will never understand my feelings. Without Ryo, there is nothing in existence for me but agony. To fall asleep once again, knowing that Ryo is happy, that my beloved treasure is well cared-for, and never again exist without him, not even for a moment… There is nothing else I can wish for."
"Like you thought battling Ryo eternally was the best you could have before we merged?" Monodramon asked him, annoyed and worried. "You're linked to Ryo! What if you make him suicidal!"
"I am happy, little dragon." Dracomon got to his feet, shaking out his body, tail and wings stretching. "I am happy enough it overflows," the red-eyed dragon said, and smiled as the light of digivolution enveloped him.
The name that resounded in their shared mind was Coredramon.
For humans, who didn't have cores, would that translate to Souldramon? Or even Heartdramon.
"Blue," Coredramon commented idly, folding in one of his wings to look at the back of it. His eyes and horns were still red. "It's been so long I wondered if I was mistaken, and it was always green…"
"I thought you said you weren't going to get more powerful than you had to!"
The great head bent down to look at him, clearly despairing for the younger generation. "It's only a champion." How was that becoming powerful? Settling back onto his haunches, he said, "I believe I have worn out my tolerance for children failing to grasp the point. Regardless, I needed an adult form's maturity to not just fall back asleep…" Red eyes unfocused, and Monodramon, wanting to know what he was thinking, what he felt, could feel him focusing his awareness on his, their bond with Ryo. "He's worried… Once I dreamed of fighting alongside him," and oh, it still did hurt to know that those dreams could never be, "but I'll settle for ensuring that my treasure is… secure." Well guarded, but also aware he was safe. Scaled brow ridges rose, looking down at Monodramon. "I just told you that he was worried. Go. Wake up and cuddle him or something. Do you want me to start asking what I keep you around for?"
Even if the size of a champion was nothing next to Millenniummon, Coredramon's mouth was still more than large enough to bite his head off, Monodramon was made very aware as the elder dragon rose and took a step forward to look down at him, those teeth near his face. "I'm, I'm not afraid of you!" Monodramon said, drawing on every memory of being Cyberdramon and wanting to fight.
"That's better," Coredramon said. "You awoke the sleeping dragon, cub. It would be… remiss of me to not make sure you regret it."
"As long as Ryo is safe, and everyone survives so he isn't sad, I won't regret anything!"
"An impossible request, when Digimon that die here don't come back to life."
Digimon…
"What, what do you mean?" Monodramon asked, eyes wide.
"There's no link to the human collective unconscious here to anchor Digimon. No Primary Village. The majority of the time when their data is loaded, it's too scrambled for them to ever come back to life as themselves again, and if they are deleted or their data isn't loaded, they die permanently."
They die.
He'd always loaded their data, to get stronger, to kill whatever was threatening Ryo, but 'the majority' of them, "Dead? D-dead?"
"As long as Ryo lives, I cannot die. I wanted a world where Digimon could choose their fates. Here, they are not bound to humans, or to existence. And so, they die. …And you were unaware." The dragon sighed, and a great taloned hand knocked Monodramon over, rolling the smaller dragon under him for Coredramon to settle around him. "I need you feeling well enough to support Ryo. My experience with guilt is limited, and I can't see any similarity behind killing worthless Digimon and upsetting Ryo, so none of it is applicable."
"Hey, what are you doing?" Monodramon shoved at him. "Let me go!"
"Ryo still loves you. It's why our bond is still open. Listen, realize that nothing matters next to that, then go wake up and be there for Ryo. If he sees you upset, he'll be upset."
"But I killed Digimon!" Millenniummon wouldn't lie about something like that, not when he didn't give a damn about it.
A sigh in the great chest next to his body. "Perhaps it's caring about everything all the time that makes the rest of you so stupid and pathetic. Caring about one person is enough to make me let rebels retake three continents while I send him gift-wrapped victims, I don't want to imagine what caring about more than one... Mmm, no, evil Digimon are just as bad as the rest of you."
Monodramon had to giggle at how wrong that was, how wrong all of this was. "I killed innocent Digimon."
"In this world? Were they babies?"
"No."
"Then no such thing. In this world, it's almost impossible for a Digimon to survive without killing, forget Digivolve. Did they have human partners?"
"No."
"Then you killed killers. If that helps," Coredramon said, sounding bored, since really they wouldn't know. "Your guilt is disturbing. I haven't hurt Ryo lately. I gave up my autonomy to not hurt Ryo anymore."
This giggle he managed to block by holding his paws in front of his mouth. "Right, you'd only feel guilty if you hurt Ryo." So when Millenniummon felt Monodramon's guilt, it would make him feel like he'd hurt Ryo.
Ryo.
Pearl with a price far beyond the death of any single living creature, rose with such terrible thorns, the light that killed. Brilliant and hard as diamond, the shining gem that bore through armor.
Glorious destroyer. So small and yet so powerful, so delicate and so devastating. Child of Miracles, bearer of the thunderbolts, vessel of the wrath of every god.
Could he blame them that they flocked to worship him, to be chosen as blessed vessels of his power? No, but oh could he envy them. How he longed to hold Ryo in his grasp, coil around him jealously, place him among the greatest treasures of four worlds so he could outshine them all, and those lesser beings could only gaze in awe.
Monodramon should have either been stunned that Millenniummon was being this sappy, even if it really wasn't unprecedented when he'd called Ryo his beloved, or worried that Millenniummon had figured out that by focusing on an emotion he could manipulate Monodramon's emotions, but Monodramon really couldn't help wanting to purr. He was a dragon, and Ryo was wonderful. Quiet and shattered and hurt when Monodramon found him, but so brave, letting himself get hurt again to protect them, even knowing in his heart what was coming and how could anyone damage such a treasure?
Ryo needed to be protected. That was why Monodramon wanted to be his partner, because protecting was what partners did, and he wanted to protect Ryo.
That was what let them DNA digivolve, wasn't it? It had to be, he didn't have anything else in common with Millenniummon. The desire to end Ryo's pain. The wish to protect him, above all else, no matter what the cost. No matter what sacrifice was demanded of them, in exchange for Ryo's peace.
A great gust of hot air, the sigh of an elder dragon. "Careful, dragon child. I stilled my heart for Ryo's sake, and did it gladly. If our hearts begin to beat as one, then your heart will also beat for Ryo's sake and his sake alone."
"I want to be his partner."
Silence, and the knowledge that he'd said something ridiculous. No evolution of Millenniummon was going to care what he wanted. "If you died," Coredramon said, in a tone that proclaimed that he was speaking to an utter fool, "Ryo will be sad. It is one thing to choose death when I am thousands of years old, have exhausted all my other options and am quite thoroughly evil, but you are what, two? How will you tell Ryo that you have traded six thousand years for a mere sixty? Do you think I created a world where Digimon had the right to choose without reason? Do you want to throw away the freedom I never possessed and choose agony instead?!"