Author's Notes

Man that chapter took forever to write up. And it wasn't like it took a backwater this time either. I really hope the rest of the story doesn't take as long as it's first three chapters.

By the way, note that Ken acts far more vulnerable straight after the Digimon Emperor incident, but even then seems more open to Wormmon than anyone else, even in the Dark Ocean incident that got Kari to open up to Yolei. He seemed to me to have a mask on with the digidestineds until he got more comfortable with them.

Enjoy, and tell me what you think.

Chapter 2 – Devil Whispers

They say 'better the devil you know than the devil you don't', but that failed to hold when what little one knew simply expanded the range of ignorance. And the power of darkness was unfortunately one of those very things.

A startlingly vivid image of TK's face suddenly shone in his mind; small, pale, stricken...hidden behind anger disguised or perhaps warped into something else, in a way only one who relied on rationale more than instinct could accomplish. The pity that lurked behind hatred, the pain that had surfaced in something that had not even been intended to have any relation to him. Then the whip striking through the air, attempting to shatter the very image of rejection and pressing defiance, only to strike the edge and leave only the slightest mark to further spurn the parry.

He had understood more than himself at that point; the power of darkness, that dark whirlpool, Devimon...what a fool he had been to ever think he could control such absolute power. Such a fool to ever begin to hope to understand...

'Didn't I tell you to beware the darkness?'

The tone was conversational, teasing even, but with it, old memories surfaced.

'Beware the darkness.'

'I'm the most powerful figure in the digital world, and some digimon emerges from a whirlpool and tells me to beware the darkness? Hah!'

Maniacal laughter ensured, and it took Wormmon's cry to alert him to the fact that it wasn't his laughter echoing from the past, but the demon in front of him.

'Ken,' the worm digimon persisted again, nudging his pant leg. 'What is it?'

He forced a smile on his face, attempting to ignore the suffocating feeling that grew stronger, and the slight cold that was starting to creep in through his grey blazer.

Wormmon looked sceptical, but dismissed it. 'I have to digivolve Ken.'

Another bout interrupted the unsaid reply. 'You can't digivolve, you pathetic little worm.'

A flying kick, strong and hard, knocked the little worm to his side with a cry of pain.

'Pathetic little worm,' he spat.

A growl, this time from an angry partner. 'Silk thread!'

The razor sharp threads he spat out were easily clawed away by the fallen angel. 'Pathetic.'

'Don't call him pathetic,' Ken spat, ignoring the greying surroundings and the whispering voices to focus on the battle before him.

'Why not?' the devil asked, almost conversationally as he took another swipe at the digimon to send him tumbling. 'He is just an insect to you. A disgusting little worm.'

'Get away from me. You're sliming up my pants.'

'Ken?' Wormmon looked worriedly up at his partner, having crawled back to his feet and at a loss at the comment. Who had been calling who pathetic? No-one, as far as he knew, and his hearing was pretty sharp; an evolutionary trait he fathomed, as it was quite useful for worms to be able to hear and spot birds from a distance and flee before they became grub. Which left only two options: a control spire turned Devimon could talk telepathically, which he highly doubted, or Ken was hearing voices again.

He pulled on the pant leg, as he always did when wanting the other's undivided attention. Problem was, that meant that neither of them were paying any attention to their adversary, whose long hands had entrapped them in a metre radius before Ken noted the pressure and looked down, only to find a dark arm more pronounced than anything save the friend at his feet.

'Uh...Wormmon?' he asked hesitantly. 'Do you know any way we can fly?'

'Huh?' The digimon blinked at the odd question, before following the other's gaze. 'Oh, um, well...' He stuttered for a bit, before gaining his composure. 'My champion form can-watch out!' he shouted suddenly, firing a silk thread past the surprised human and hitting the claw that had reaching for him. It was hopeless though, because it had done nothing.

Ken began turning, hearing the sharp thread pick strike something solid, but the claw, tinted with dark energy, would undoubtedly be faster. In his mind's eye, he saw the skull-boned Chimeramon lunging for his partner, Wormmon cutting through the air with a fierce determination he had till then come to forgotten , arching into the air like a graceful-

-hold on a sec. Arching up into the air.

No, he wasn't mistaken. Wormmon had just jumped past him, just in time to put himself between the predator and the prey.

The predator-prey relationship has always been an integral part of balancing nature. Humans think themselves to be at the apex of the cycle at times, but the truth is that no circle has a pedestal, a throne, where one species could comfortably sit without another pushing them down.

The most prominent aspect of a circle, save its lack of a beginning and end, was it's lack of a straight direction. Always, it curved: towards someone, away from someone...and this was one of the times it was doing both.

Wormmon has just jumped past him, facing the demon that should have been his to face. And he, he was just standing there, stock still in a frozen horror, sort of like how he had when black spores had flown through the air at someone, and without thinking, he had lunged forward-

It was only when he felt Wormmon's antenna's involuntarily twitch that he realised he had. But the grip of evil was too close now; they'd both be caught.

Wormmon...no, he didn't deserve it. He would never deserve it. No-one did...except the one who had created that evil. Except him.

'Ken!'

He closed his eyes...only to open them again at the sudden rush of air striking past him.

'Wha-?' He broke off, head tilting back from the momentum to gape at the wasp-like creature that carried him in a firm grip. 'Wormmon?' he guessed, recognising the features that had carried through the evolution.

'Stingmon,' the champion corrected, rising higher into the sky as far below, black winds prepared to follow.

'Stingmon...' he tasted the name on his lips, finding it almost natural. The wind still rushed past them, and voices hummed in his ear, but the wind was so loud that it drowned out the whispers of the devil.

'Who were you talking to before?' the wasp asked, veering to avoid a dark shot before changing direction, leaving the main question underlying it. Are you hearing voices again?

'I-I'm not sure,' the other replied. 'I thought, that Devimon, like the Dark Whirlpool...but now, I didn't see his lips moving at all. My head feels clearer up here.'

The digimon made a buzzing noise, before swerving gracefully again. 'Ken,' he began. 'If I could put your demons to rest, I would.'

'I know,' the boy smiled, allowing that one comfort. 'But they're my demons. Don't make them yours on my account. This is a mistake I need to fix by myself.'

'No,' Stingmon corrected. 'Not by yourself. I am as much to blame as you.'

No...no he wasn't. But there was no use telling him that. He would just get the same reply back...and who knew, perhaps they were both right?

'We'll start with the Control Spires,' Ken decided. 'No-one else needs wayward demons running after them.'

Neither did they...but guilt was a hard burden to bear, a blindfold tight enough that it could only ever be truly removed by another willing to push past.

'Death hand!'

Stingmon easily dodged in the air.

'He is just a Control Spire,' he said to his human partner. 'There is no emotion, no life. Nothing, save bits of darkness sewn together. If we are to stop him, we can only destroy him. Otherwise he will simply continue his pursuit. And I know that is not an end you want.'

Devimon. A demon digimon, controlling the powers of darkness on his whim, capable of molding the perfect warrior, created by a woman who desired the emperor far more than his downfall-

There was no way he was going to give them what they wanted. But what was the alternative. Killing-

'No,' Stingmon interrupted, reading the thoughts perfectly. 'It is not killing when there is no soul. We are simply destroying a control spire...just one that fights back with the grace of a buffoon.'

Ken stifled a laugh at that. 'Was that last comment necessary?'

'Yes,' the other replied, and in perfect seriousness. 'But you know as well as I do that sometimes there is no choice but to kill or watch others, sometimes even yourself, be killed. It's always hard to do, but in the end it comes down to what is more important.'

Stingmon was right. He did know, though he wasn't sure how. It was as if he'd been through that very battle before, but simply not remembering it. He imagined though it was one of those things similar to riding a bike; the experience never truly left you.

'Stingmon,' he said in any case, as the two shot forward. 'You don't have to ask.'

'I know,' the other said truthfully. 'But I ask you anyway.'

He spun in the air, dodging Devimon once more as mauve blades emerged from his arms. 'Ready to shatter a nightmare?'

Ken nodded in equal seriousness, the wind still deafening his ears. 'Yes.'

'Spiking strike!'

'Things look brighter now,' Ken said quietly as the two landed in the merciful silence amidst the shattering data of the control-spire turned fiend.

'Yes they do,' Stingmon replied, knowing exactly what his human partner meant, touching down gently onto the lush grass outside primary village and setting the boy on his feet, before looking around. 'There doesn't seem to be any other control spires here.'

The Digidestined of Kindness frowned. He was sure there had been one. Up on the ridge.

'Ken?'

He voiced his opinion, and the wasp turned and hummed in that direction. 'There's no sign of one now,' he commented. 'But you're right. I think I remember seeing it too.'

'Which means that weird woman's turned it into another digimon.' His eyes narrowed as he looked towards the village. 'They'll have no idea who they're dealing with.'

'Shall we go?' Stingmon asked, looking at the human. He knew well what 'they' had meant. He had after all seeing the other Digidestined from the air, even if they had been themselves moving too fast to be spotted for someone not specifically looking for them.

'You go. You might need both hands.'

'Ken...'

'I'll catch up. I promise.'

Stingmon agreed to that, taking into the air again.

They watched him. He watched them. The tension in the air was so thick that a sharp cleaver made from chrome digizoid would have trouble cutting through it.

Stingmon dedigivolved, turning into Wormmon in the crook of Ken's elbow as an assortment of digimon and humans watched them, each with their first, and differing, emotions showing on their face. All of them looked shocked, and slightly apprehensive, frozen in that state even after having seen the face of the new leaf. And who could blame them? Knowing that people didn't change overnight, and knowing, seeing, what he had done...what he was capable of.

They didn't know the extent of his sin. And he wouldn't tell. To them, he had just killed an innocent digimon. To him, he was one grain of sand closer to eradicating his sins.

Turning, Wormmon comfortable and secure in his hold, he leapt gently from the roof he had been standing on. Freshly painted and fixed, he noted. They were making an effort to fix his mistakes, something he should be doing...but it was more important to stop others from getting hurt at that point than fixing the damage already done.

The last hints of the conversation floated up to them, clearer than they should have been, both affirming and rebuking that claim. In any case, they solidified one belief.

'So...Ken saved Cody?'

'Sure looks that way.'

'No, it can't be.'

And that last statement had been said so solidly and venomously that there was no room for dispute.

Avoiding the area that housed the cradles (he remembered that well from his last visit), he threaded his way towards the nearest Digiport and away from the village. He could feel eyes on him, but he ignored them, face still set in the blank mask behind which remnants of a devil still lurked.

At the digiport, he paused, spying something on the floor beside the glowing screen.

A lens cleaner. How...ironic.

He snatched it from the sudden swirl of wind that threatened to blow it to who knew where. A storm was starting to pick up.

He looked at the piece of cloth again: dirtied, soiled, but still somehow maintaining a sort of purity in it.

'Yolei will be wanting this back.' But he didn't sound so sure. Instead, he stared at it a moment longer, before slipping it into his pocket and returning home.