Little Ray of Light
A note: Yes, I fully understand that Kari's Japanese. Ease up, y'bastards.
I laughed. I had done it, actually done it. I did not feel joy at my accomplishment, rather I felt pride in my achievement. Ever since my remanifestation in the real world, I have wanted this, wanted to take from these 'Digidestined' children what they treasured so very much. Tucked away inside my own personal coffin, she slept, in the stasis that vampiric magic can bestow on an individual, more a trance than a real slumber, to be broken when I lifted the lid, unwrapped my gift to myself, so to speak. I wanted everything to be ready. I possessed little. Lacking followers in the digital world, I could not re-write my palace, but instead lived in catacombs beneath the server-city megalopolis of Paris, waiting for news of my return to spread to my surviving followers, even new converts to my cause. I fed on the citizen digimon, usually data. E-mails, message board postings, chat invitations and the like. But whenever I could capture a nice, delicious system file some fool had mistakenly left exposed because of his file-sharing program, I took it. But I digress. I had everything I would need for the next... not even I knew how long she would last. The resistance you put up against a vampire's spell is a true measure of your spirit's strength. I felt she would give me a good battle for this new soul. When I was done with her, she would be embraced, yes, brought to serve at my side, oh how it would send chills down their spines, especially Angewomon, who destroyed my original form when we battled. Transforming to Venomyotismon, while powerful, had lacked the tact I enjoyed. I set the last few tools I would need down on a table, laid across a cloth of pure black silk. I straightened my coat and stood at the foot of the coffin. I waved my arm, and it swung open of it's own accord. She lay there, sleeping. The Eighth Child, her crest, gone, her digivice, dropped in a river in the real world. Though I desired to harness it's strength, it would lead her friends straight here. She had grown during my absence, from the little girl to a teenager, she had nearly become a full woman. Her curves were beautiful, her hair fell across her cheek in a perfect auburn lock. I had taken an opportunity to change her clothes, warping them with my dark magic. No longer did she wear the shorts and shirt she had when she entered the real world. A gorgeous black silk dress, lace running around the collar that touched at the base of her neck. Higher up was a black leather choker, set in it's center was a pearlescant Moonstone, her birthstone, I had checked. Even then, the tiny beacon of white offset her otherwise perfectly Midnight ensemble fantastically. All this without adding her own beautiful face. I could not revel for any longer, though. Her eyes fluttered open.
"W-where am I?!" She bolted upright, first registering my presence and scooting back so that she pressed against the coffin's head.
"Myotismon!" She yelled my name as a curse. As the rest of the situation began to sink in, she felt around her neck.
"What am I wearing?"
I smiled.
"All in good time. Welcome to my humble home."
"Your... home? The castle?"
"No. I'm afraid we aren't there. We're under the digital equivalent of Paris."
"Why am I not... why didn't you?" No, she was passing down a different path that I would need to lead her from. With a discreet flick of my wrist, the black cloth on the table folded neatly over the tools that lay upon it. She would not need to see those, yet. "Kill you? Why should I? Did I ever even say I wanted to kill you? Come. Let's eat dinner." "Dinner?"
"Of course. Forgive my breach in hospitality. You are here as my guest. Please, prepare yourself however you choose. I will be waiting for you in the dining room." "But... but..."
I laughed to myself a bit as the door closed itself behind me.
"His... guest?" Kari let that sink in. She was here. Presumably alone. With Myotismon. Myotismon, for God's sake! She wasn't even going to start on her tirade about how hard it was to kill the bastard, but his guest! "Prepare myself, he says." She stood in the coffin.
A coffin? I slept in a coffin? Euch! She hopped gingerly outside of it. Nervously, she looked around the room. Her father had taken the family to a nice hotel once, that place and this were describable with one word: Opulent. Everything seemed to be perfectly clean, the finely detailed red wallpaper and the four poster bed, it's blanket and sheets a matching pattern, but in a deep, Imperial purple. A bureau that could have been a hundred years old, but shined as though it were brand new. In the mirror, she got her first look at herself.
She was... beautiful. She looked as though she had been dressed for some kind of gala, one where men wore tuxedos. She swallowed. The only thing she was missing was makeup. Cautiously she approached the bureau. She always kept her makeup in the top left hand drawer of her own dresser at home. She let a delicious chill run down her spine as she found the same thing here, too. Snap out of it, Kari! You're in a life or death situation here! Stop thinking about this like it's a romance movie! She swallowed again. Her pulse rose a few beats. That's almost what this was like. Some kind of romance movie from Hell. She couldn't believe it. Myotismon was a hopeless romantic. She was wearing black. She didn't especially like black. Black was a darkness she didn't want to return to, a darkness that T.K. had lost his control of... no, she wouldn't go there now. She couldn't go there now. Calmly, she took a stick of lipstick from the cosmetics in the drawer and applied it to her lips. The exact same shade of red-brown she had at home. That came as no surprise to her. How he'd done this, she had no idea. She dabbed some blush on her cheeks. She couldn't put too much on, it would ruin the effect of the beautiful dress... God dammit! Look at yourself! She threw the mascara she had been considering back into the drawer and slammed it hard enough to push the entire beureau back, rattling the mirror. It was indeed very old. A digimon feared by thousands who knew full well he was dead, who had killed his way into that reputation, who was one of the most evil, dark, and foul beings she had ever even come into contact with, and here she was about to have dinner with him! Why! Why didn't she try and escape? She had to. She had to get out of here and warn Tai! She reached for her digivice... of course it wouldn't be at her belt, she didn't have a belt. She swallowed. Come to think of it, there wasn't anywhere she could keep a digivice on this dress. She eased back over to the coffin and peered inside warily. She looked around the room frantically. Where could it be?! Of course. She sighed. Myotismon would never have trusted her with it. That meant she was on her own. She eased the door open a crack and peered out in the hallway. From her angle, she could only see one wall, and that was covered in the same wallpaper that was around her room. She pushed the door open the rest of the way, and was suddenly awed. She had been told about Myotismon's skill with architecture, his tricks with gravity and Escher- like mastery of vertigo, asymmetry and mazes. It was indeed a hall, a great, enourmous hall. Though there were no widows, a dim light was provided by a great chandelier. Beneath it, Myotismon sat at one end of a long table, a dinner sitting before him beneath a silver dome. "Ah, I see you've finished."
She seemed to pick up from his intonation that he had left her to gather herself mentally, not put on makeup. She suddenly felt rather foolish, and decided she would sit and eat with him, while trying to plan her escape. She approached the seat that was obviously hers, set for a fancy meal, two forks, two spoons, and a perfectly cut wineglass (Was that crystal?) sitting at it's perfect place. "Well, are you hungry?" he asked, idly. Now that he mentioned it, Kari was famished. Myotismon smiled.
"I won't make you wait any longer."
The dome lifted itself to reveal a simply arranged dinner of chicken, rice, and vegetables. She hungrily lifted a fork and began to eat. The chicken was in a sort of garlic butter that made it seem to melt in her mouth with each bite. She reached out to her wineglass, and realized that it had filled itself. She looked up at Myotismon, who was watching her intently, with an intensity so powerful she had to look down again and compose herself. Not looking up, she asked him.
"Don't you feed on... humans?"
"Yes. Here, I feed on data. But food is nice. I still have some blood as a bit of a snack."
He took a sip of wine. Kari decided to leave her glass alone and go back to the vegetables, which were in a sauce that reminded her of Chinese sweet and sour, but with certain spices that made it blend with the chicken. "Don't worry. You're not drinking blood."
She didn't look up at him, again not wanting to see him staring at her. Cautiously, she lifted the wineglass to her lips and took a dainty sip. She had only tasted wine once, it had been on that night. No, she needed to focus, now more than ever. Was there anything that tasted odd about the chicken? Anything that might be a virus? A worm? Something that would undermine the data that made up this body? Izzy had taught them about all of them, like survival in the real wilderness, you had to know which plants were poisonous and which ones were good to eat. The garlic, though, would cover up the smell, easily. She looked up at Myotismon, who was taking small, delicate bites of his meal, and she asked, "I thought vampires hated garlic."
"You've seen Dracula one too many times." He quipped back, unfazed.
She thought that that was a satisfactory answer, and decided that since Myotismon ate the same food and drank the same wine (she thought), she'd manage. They finished the meal in silence. The silver dish cover reappeared from nowhere and covered their dishes. Myotismon smiled for a moment and waved one hand.
"Abracadabra. And now, dessert."
Inexplicably, when the dish lifted again, a single, thin, dainty slice of chocolate cake sat on her plate, complete with a tiny, cherry-like fruit on the top. It was a data packet that grew naturally in the Digital World, she had eaten them before. The cake, like the meal, was delicous, and when they had both finished, they set their forks down and the plates whisked themselves away. Myotismon folded his hands and set them on the table. He looked at her with those eyes, those deep golden eyes. Her thoughts echoed those of hundreds of girls who had seen orbs like them, never look into the eyes of a vampire.
"Now, I suppose you want to know why you're here, and why I've treated you to this evening." Kari nodded, keeping her head bowed.
"You're worried, aren't you? You're afraid that you aren't safe?"
She nodded again.
"Child, you are safer here than anywhere else in the digital world. I promise I will not hurt you."
She raised her head a bit. He had not finished.
"Unless you want me to."
"What?"
"Nevermind that. I brought you here because you were cold, alone, and unhappy with the life you had. I am giving you an evening to regain your composure, relax and reexamine your life."
"Why?"
Myotismon still did not avert his eyes from her.
"I cannot tell you that."
Her mind began to run through every possible reason he could have brought her here, all of them tending to involve her death. She swallowed nervously. "Nonetheless, would you like to dance?"
She chanced a look at him. His eyes were no longer so intense. They were now the eyes of a gentleman at a masquerade, sincerity being shown behind the mask. "Dance?"
"Yes, dance. A tango? A waltz? A flamenco?"
She was taken completely aback by this. He was... asking her to dance with him? She nervously nodded.
"All right."
"What, then?"
"A... a waltz." She mumbled.
Myotismon nodded. The room suddenly seemed to play Mozart, the beat running at a steady one two three, one two three, one two three. Myotismon stood and strode to where she sat. He extended his hand and looked down at her, his intensity returning. She swallowed again as she looked at his hand, so large compared to her own. She waited a moment before she took her own hand up to meet his. He swept her into his arms, and they floated across the floor of the hall, black upon blue, his long blonde hair flowing behind them both as her own dark hair swished about her face. She could not look into his eyes now. Myotismon, she realized, was truly a romantic. The music gave his intensity an even greater quality. It seems that he carefully considered each step, each breath, each change of weight, before moving. He was in absolute control now, guiding her every move. Yes, she had no control over herself. Eventually, the song ended, but he did not let her go. She felt herself pulled towards him, pulled towards this darkness, this darkness she had come so close to... "Hikari."
Kari looked up at him.
"I did not come for you sooner because you were an innocent. Now you have seen darkness, and understand it's embrace."
T.K. had lost control over the darkness inside him.
"I want you to make a decision tonight about whether you will embrace the darkness back, or forsake it and return to the light."
T.K. had worn black. He never wore black. A black tee and long pants. He'd stormed in and begun yelling.
"You know that light and darkness can both hurt, their chaotic, painful sides are the dangers of all things."
He's thrown her on the floor. Her shorts were around her ankles, her shirt was around her wrists. Before she could say anything, he'd ripped into her.
"No matter where you go, you are always in danger from one side or the other."
He thrust deep into her, hard. There was blood. She was being pushed forward with each slam, she was pushed from being on all fours over and her face ground into the carpet for a moment before she stopped. T.K. kept going, then, there was a merciful silence. She felt a wetness spurt inside her. Uncerimoniously, T.K. pulled out. He cleaned himself off with a kleenex and tossed it on the floor. He left her like that, confused and alone, slumped forward on the carpet. Utterly, irrevocably betrayed.
"However, now you know that both sides have pleasure as well."
Vampires, it is said, are very sexual creatures.
"Hikari, would you like to feel the true pleasures darkness gives?"
There was silence between them for a moment, before she pushed her head against his chest.
"Yes."
A note: Yes, I fully understand that Kari's Japanese. Ease up, y'bastards.
I laughed. I had done it, actually done it. I did not feel joy at my accomplishment, rather I felt pride in my achievement. Ever since my remanifestation in the real world, I have wanted this, wanted to take from these 'Digidestined' children what they treasured so very much. Tucked away inside my own personal coffin, she slept, in the stasis that vampiric magic can bestow on an individual, more a trance than a real slumber, to be broken when I lifted the lid, unwrapped my gift to myself, so to speak. I wanted everything to be ready. I possessed little. Lacking followers in the digital world, I could not re-write my palace, but instead lived in catacombs beneath the server-city megalopolis of Paris, waiting for news of my return to spread to my surviving followers, even new converts to my cause. I fed on the citizen digimon, usually data. E-mails, message board postings, chat invitations and the like. But whenever I could capture a nice, delicious system file some fool had mistakenly left exposed because of his file-sharing program, I took it. But I digress. I had everything I would need for the next... not even I knew how long she would last. The resistance you put up against a vampire's spell is a true measure of your spirit's strength. I felt she would give me a good battle for this new soul. When I was done with her, she would be embraced, yes, brought to serve at my side, oh how it would send chills down their spines, especially Angewomon, who destroyed my original form when we battled. Transforming to Venomyotismon, while powerful, had lacked the tact I enjoyed. I set the last few tools I would need down on a table, laid across a cloth of pure black silk. I straightened my coat and stood at the foot of the coffin. I waved my arm, and it swung open of it's own accord. She lay there, sleeping. The Eighth Child, her crest, gone, her digivice, dropped in a river in the real world. Though I desired to harness it's strength, it would lead her friends straight here. She had grown during my absence, from the little girl to a teenager, she had nearly become a full woman. Her curves were beautiful, her hair fell across her cheek in a perfect auburn lock. I had taken an opportunity to change her clothes, warping them with my dark magic. No longer did she wear the shorts and shirt she had when she entered the real world. A gorgeous black silk dress, lace running around the collar that touched at the base of her neck. Higher up was a black leather choker, set in it's center was a pearlescant Moonstone, her birthstone, I had checked. Even then, the tiny beacon of white offset her otherwise perfectly Midnight ensemble fantastically. All this without adding her own beautiful face. I could not revel for any longer, though. Her eyes fluttered open.
"W-where am I?!" She bolted upright, first registering my presence and scooting back so that she pressed against the coffin's head.
"Myotismon!" She yelled my name as a curse. As the rest of the situation began to sink in, she felt around her neck.
"What am I wearing?"
I smiled.
"All in good time. Welcome to my humble home."
"Your... home? The castle?"
"No. I'm afraid we aren't there. We're under the digital equivalent of Paris."
"Why am I not... why didn't you?" No, she was passing down a different path that I would need to lead her from. With a discreet flick of my wrist, the black cloth on the table folded neatly over the tools that lay upon it. She would not need to see those, yet. "Kill you? Why should I? Did I ever even say I wanted to kill you? Come. Let's eat dinner." "Dinner?"
"Of course. Forgive my breach in hospitality. You are here as my guest. Please, prepare yourself however you choose. I will be waiting for you in the dining room." "But... but..."
I laughed to myself a bit as the door closed itself behind me.
"His... guest?" Kari let that sink in. She was here. Presumably alone. With Myotismon. Myotismon, for God's sake! She wasn't even going to start on her tirade about how hard it was to kill the bastard, but his guest! "Prepare myself, he says." She stood in the coffin.
A coffin? I slept in a coffin? Euch! She hopped gingerly outside of it. Nervously, she looked around the room. Her father had taken the family to a nice hotel once, that place and this were describable with one word: Opulent. Everything seemed to be perfectly clean, the finely detailed red wallpaper and the four poster bed, it's blanket and sheets a matching pattern, but in a deep, Imperial purple. A bureau that could have been a hundred years old, but shined as though it were brand new. In the mirror, she got her first look at herself.
She was... beautiful. She looked as though she had been dressed for some kind of gala, one where men wore tuxedos. She swallowed. The only thing she was missing was makeup. Cautiously she approached the bureau. She always kept her makeup in the top left hand drawer of her own dresser at home. She let a delicious chill run down her spine as she found the same thing here, too. Snap out of it, Kari! You're in a life or death situation here! Stop thinking about this like it's a romance movie! She swallowed again. Her pulse rose a few beats. That's almost what this was like. Some kind of romance movie from Hell. She couldn't believe it. Myotismon was a hopeless romantic. She was wearing black. She didn't especially like black. Black was a darkness she didn't want to return to, a darkness that T.K. had lost his control of... no, she wouldn't go there now. She couldn't go there now. Calmly, she took a stick of lipstick from the cosmetics in the drawer and applied it to her lips. The exact same shade of red-brown she had at home. That came as no surprise to her. How he'd done this, she had no idea. She dabbed some blush on her cheeks. She couldn't put too much on, it would ruin the effect of the beautiful dress... God dammit! Look at yourself! She threw the mascara she had been considering back into the drawer and slammed it hard enough to push the entire beureau back, rattling the mirror. It was indeed very old. A digimon feared by thousands who knew full well he was dead, who had killed his way into that reputation, who was one of the most evil, dark, and foul beings she had ever even come into contact with, and here she was about to have dinner with him! Why! Why didn't she try and escape? She had to. She had to get out of here and warn Tai! She reached for her digivice... of course it wouldn't be at her belt, she didn't have a belt. She swallowed. Come to think of it, there wasn't anywhere she could keep a digivice on this dress. She eased back over to the coffin and peered inside warily. She looked around the room frantically. Where could it be?! Of course. She sighed. Myotismon would never have trusted her with it. That meant she was on her own. She eased the door open a crack and peered out in the hallway. From her angle, she could only see one wall, and that was covered in the same wallpaper that was around her room. She pushed the door open the rest of the way, and was suddenly awed. She had been told about Myotismon's skill with architecture, his tricks with gravity and Escher- like mastery of vertigo, asymmetry and mazes. It was indeed a hall, a great, enourmous hall. Though there were no widows, a dim light was provided by a great chandelier. Beneath it, Myotismon sat at one end of a long table, a dinner sitting before him beneath a silver dome. "Ah, I see you've finished."
She seemed to pick up from his intonation that he had left her to gather herself mentally, not put on makeup. She suddenly felt rather foolish, and decided she would sit and eat with him, while trying to plan her escape. She approached the seat that was obviously hers, set for a fancy meal, two forks, two spoons, and a perfectly cut wineglass (Was that crystal?) sitting at it's perfect place. "Well, are you hungry?" he asked, idly. Now that he mentioned it, Kari was famished. Myotismon smiled.
"I won't make you wait any longer."
The dome lifted itself to reveal a simply arranged dinner of chicken, rice, and vegetables. She hungrily lifted a fork and began to eat. The chicken was in a sort of garlic butter that made it seem to melt in her mouth with each bite. She reached out to her wineglass, and realized that it had filled itself. She looked up at Myotismon, who was watching her intently, with an intensity so powerful she had to look down again and compose herself. Not looking up, she asked him.
"Don't you feed on... humans?"
"Yes. Here, I feed on data. But food is nice. I still have some blood as a bit of a snack."
He took a sip of wine. Kari decided to leave her glass alone and go back to the vegetables, which were in a sauce that reminded her of Chinese sweet and sour, but with certain spices that made it blend with the chicken. "Don't worry. You're not drinking blood."
She didn't look up at him, again not wanting to see him staring at her. Cautiously, she lifted the wineglass to her lips and took a dainty sip. She had only tasted wine once, it had been on that night. No, she needed to focus, now more than ever. Was there anything that tasted odd about the chicken? Anything that might be a virus? A worm? Something that would undermine the data that made up this body? Izzy had taught them about all of them, like survival in the real wilderness, you had to know which plants were poisonous and which ones were good to eat. The garlic, though, would cover up the smell, easily. She looked up at Myotismon, who was taking small, delicate bites of his meal, and she asked, "I thought vampires hated garlic."
"You've seen Dracula one too many times." He quipped back, unfazed.
She thought that that was a satisfactory answer, and decided that since Myotismon ate the same food and drank the same wine (she thought), she'd manage. They finished the meal in silence. The silver dish cover reappeared from nowhere and covered their dishes. Myotismon smiled for a moment and waved one hand.
"Abracadabra. And now, dessert."
Inexplicably, when the dish lifted again, a single, thin, dainty slice of chocolate cake sat on her plate, complete with a tiny, cherry-like fruit on the top. It was a data packet that grew naturally in the Digital World, she had eaten them before. The cake, like the meal, was delicous, and when they had both finished, they set their forks down and the plates whisked themselves away. Myotismon folded his hands and set them on the table. He looked at her with those eyes, those deep golden eyes. Her thoughts echoed those of hundreds of girls who had seen orbs like them, never look into the eyes of a vampire.
"Now, I suppose you want to know why you're here, and why I've treated you to this evening." Kari nodded, keeping her head bowed.
"You're worried, aren't you? You're afraid that you aren't safe?"
She nodded again.
"Child, you are safer here than anywhere else in the digital world. I promise I will not hurt you."
She raised her head a bit. He had not finished.
"Unless you want me to."
"What?"
"Nevermind that. I brought you here because you were cold, alone, and unhappy with the life you had. I am giving you an evening to regain your composure, relax and reexamine your life."
"Why?"
Myotismon still did not avert his eyes from her.
"I cannot tell you that."
Her mind began to run through every possible reason he could have brought her here, all of them tending to involve her death. She swallowed nervously. "Nonetheless, would you like to dance?"
She chanced a look at him. His eyes were no longer so intense. They were now the eyes of a gentleman at a masquerade, sincerity being shown behind the mask. "Dance?"
"Yes, dance. A tango? A waltz? A flamenco?"
She was taken completely aback by this. He was... asking her to dance with him? She nervously nodded.
"All right."
"What, then?"
"A... a waltz." She mumbled.
Myotismon nodded. The room suddenly seemed to play Mozart, the beat running at a steady one two three, one two three, one two three. Myotismon stood and strode to where she sat. He extended his hand and looked down at her, his intensity returning. She swallowed again as she looked at his hand, so large compared to her own. She waited a moment before she took her own hand up to meet his. He swept her into his arms, and they floated across the floor of the hall, black upon blue, his long blonde hair flowing behind them both as her own dark hair swished about her face. She could not look into his eyes now. Myotismon, she realized, was truly a romantic. The music gave his intensity an even greater quality. It seems that he carefully considered each step, each breath, each change of weight, before moving. He was in absolute control now, guiding her every move. Yes, she had no control over herself. Eventually, the song ended, but he did not let her go. She felt herself pulled towards him, pulled towards this darkness, this darkness she had come so close to... "Hikari."
Kari looked up at him.
"I did not come for you sooner because you were an innocent. Now you have seen darkness, and understand it's embrace."
T.K. had lost control over the darkness inside him.
"I want you to make a decision tonight about whether you will embrace the darkness back, or forsake it and return to the light."
T.K. had worn black. He never wore black. A black tee and long pants. He'd stormed in and begun yelling.
"You know that light and darkness can both hurt, their chaotic, painful sides are the dangers of all things."
He's thrown her on the floor. Her shorts were around her ankles, her shirt was around her wrists. Before she could say anything, he'd ripped into her.
"No matter where you go, you are always in danger from one side or the other."
He thrust deep into her, hard. There was blood. She was being pushed forward with each slam, she was pushed from being on all fours over and her face ground into the carpet for a moment before she stopped. T.K. kept going, then, there was a merciful silence. She felt a wetness spurt inside her. Uncerimoniously, T.K. pulled out. He cleaned himself off with a kleenex and tossed it on the floor. He left her like that, confused and alone, slumped forward on the carpet. Utterly, irrevocably betrayed.
"However, now you know that both sides have pleasure as well."
Vampires, it is said, are very sexual creatures.
"Hikari, would you like to feel the true pleasures darkness gives?"
There was silence between them for a moment, before she pushed her head against his chest.
"Yes."