Title: What's Mine Is Mine
Characters: Ken, Daisuke, Hikari||Pairing: Ken x Daisuke
Chapter: 8-20||Words: 7,200
Challenges: Diversity Writing: Digimon Adventure/02/tri: Kwn Daisuke: I13: more than 15 chapters; Three-Sided Box Challenge, 900 words & 20 chapters; One Ship Boot Camp, #25, administer; Chapter Set Boot Camp, #21, 20 chapters
Notes: N/A
Summary: The Chosen prevented Kaiser from taking Daisuke once. He won't allow that again. This time, they're going to hand him over personally, and they're not getting him back.

"He's calmed down some," Takeru said, hovering over Daisuke. Hikari nodded, trying not to let herself worry and knowing that she wasn't doing a proper job of it at all.

There was so much to worry about. Still no clue as to Andromon's whereabouts and then the Kaiser's threats against her partner and now whatever was going on with Daisuke.

There had only been a few traces of whatever it was that had been on the Kaiser's dart left where they could get to it. Koushirou turned up not long after Jou did and started to run scans on what they had. Neither one of them looked happy about what they saw.

"His fever hasn't gone down," Jou reported. "At least it's not too high, but I'd feel better if it would drop a little more."

"What I'm seeing here doesn't make much sense," Koushirou said a heartbeat later. "This doesn't appear to be a disease or a poison of any kind."

"So what is it?" Miyako wanted to know, moving around to where she could see Koushirou's laptop as he worked. She frowned the moment she could see things there and Hikari wondered what she saw.

"It actually reads more to me like a computer virus. Not a Virus Digimon," he clarified, for the Digimon who kept staring at him in confusion. He looked around at the others. "You see, we're all data in the Digital World. That means to an extent, we can be rewritten, under the right parameters. That isn't something that normally happens, of course."

"Thank goodness," Takeru muttered. "But what does that mean? What is it turning him into… a Digimon?"

Hikari almost wished that was the case when Koushirou gave his answer. At least that was something they could've worked with.

"I can't say for certain. This code is too complex for me to understand just by staring it for a few minutes. But given that this is the Kaiser, I don't think it's going to be anything that we want him to become. We're going to have to figure out a way to halt it before our time is up."

Miyako stared harder at it, as if she could make it all unhappen just by giving it a very stern look. Hikari wished that were true.

"What do you think the odds are on us doing that?" Takeru wanted to know. "I mean, can we? Can it be done at all?"

Koushirou shook his head. "I don't know. I'm not even certain how he made this. But I think I can guess why he gave Hikari that thirty-six hour time limit."

All eyes were on him now. Koushirou nodded. "In thirty-six hours, the code rewriting will be complete and he'll be whatever it is the Kaiser wants him to be."

"And I think we can all be certain that he won't be our friend." Iori said, voice solemn.

Hikari held back the cry of rage that boiled in her throat by sheer force of will. How could the Kaiser do all of this? Why would he? Wasn't it enough to enslave Digimon? Did he have to do this to their friends too?

Koushirou looked at Miyako. "We'll do all that we can in the time that we do have. If both of us work on it, then we might have a chance to crack the code in time."

Miyako nodded fiercely. "What do you need me to do?"

The two of them fell into the language of computers and data, which Hikari didn't understand at all. Instead, she kept her time occupied watching Daisuke, trying to get him to calm down when he started to thrash around.

"Is he saying something?" she asked, leaning forward when she heard vague noises. V-mon sat by his head, one paw resting on the shoulder that had been injured, and shook his head.

"I think he's just kind of mumbling. I haven't heard anything that really made sense." V-mon looked down. "He was trying to protect me."

Hikari rested a hand on him. "Who knows what this might've done to you. It's like Daisuke to try to protect you, you know."

"He shouldn't have to! That's my job, to protect him!" V-mon declared. He quieted himself a moment later as Daisuke twitched in his unnatural rest. Hikari didn't want to call it 'sleeping'.

"Don't worry. You two can talk it all out once he's all right again." Hikari absolutely wouldn't let herself believe anything otherwise. She couldn't help a small twinge of guilt watching all of this either.

I don't regret helping him that day but if I hadn't, if he'd gotten away on his own, would Kaiser have done this to us? Would he be using this now or would he have done something worse?

She had no idea of what to think about all of this. If she could trade herself for Daisuke and his well-being, she would have. But would it really do any good?

A familiar hand touched her shoulder and she looked up into the worried eyes of her brother. Taichi gave her a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry. Daisuke's tough as they come. He'll fight this off," he reassured her. Hikari tried a small smile back at him. It didn't feel right on her lips. But she tried it anyway.

He wasn't going to die. But there were things worse than death.

To Be Continued

Notes: What's worse than death? Me! And what I have planned.