Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon so please refrain from suing me for writing fan fiction. Thanks and enjoy!
Within Dreams—Chapter 6
A large white candle burned, wax dripping down the edges and firmly cementing it in place in its unusual holder—a skull. The skull was very old; it had yellowed slightly and some of the teeth were missing. It also had a large hole drilled neatly into the top to accommodate the candle it held. The candle and skull stuck out of earthy wall behind them. Every few feet there would be another of these candle and skull torches in the wall of the tunnel they were in.
After the long, twisting tunnel was a huge cavern, lit by hundreds more of the skull and candle torches. But they were only mere pinpricks of light in the enormity of the cavern. Twin chandeliers that hung from the ceiling generated most of the light. But there weren't just any chandeliers. They were made entirely of bones that held thousands of tiny, glimmering candles.
And in the middle of it all was a throne, also constructed of bones. But the throne wasn't what was important about the room; who—or what—was sitting in the throne, however, was. It was humanoid in shape, but the dimness of the cavern obscured facial and body features, making it difficult to tell exactly what it looked like. The black cloak they wore, making them difficult to see in the poorly lighted room, further distorted the physical appearance of whoever was sitting in the throne. It was Malign.
"Vitriol!" he shouted, his scratchy voice echoed through the cavern. "Vitriol!"
There was the sound of footsteps echoing rapidly as somebody approached the cavern. Seconds later, a tall young woman that could have been in her late teens or early twenties raced into the room. She looked out of place in the grimness of the cavern, as she wore a bright purple cloak, much like the one that Malign wore. Her curly, dark brown hair framed her pale face nicely and her eyes stood out on her face, as they were a bright, sapphire blue.
"You called, master?" she questioned. She did not bother to kneel down, as she would sooner suffer the punishment of a sound beating than suffer the indignity of dirtying herself on the ground. Plus, she knew Malign would not harm her; she was powerful—nearly as powerful as Malign himself—and perfectly capable of harming him.
Malign distastefully eyed his best fighter, annoyed by the defiant glint in her eyes and the outright refusal to kneel as she had been told to do countless times before saying: "I have finally succeeded in bringing humans to our world, Vitriol."
"I wouldn't say it was done entirely by your hand," Vitriol replied. Then added as an afterthought: "sir."
Malign was beginning to get very annoyed by the unruliness of Vitriol. "Act that way toward me again and you may not like the results of your rash actions."
Vitriol rolled her eyes, but said nothing as Malign continued: "now that I know it is possible to bring people to this realm by sleep, it shall be a simple matter of transporting them all here, where they are helpless to my power and where I will most surely rule."
The way Malign
accented "I" and "my" was enough to make Vitriol want to scream. She
took a deep breath and said: "as I said before, it wasn't entirely your power."
Now Malign had had enough. "I gave you your warning, Vitriol, which is
far more than I give to those lower than you and you decided not to take me
seriously. Now you shall suffer the
consequences."
Vitriol backed away. She suddenly realized she had been
arrogant. Far too arrogant for her own
good. Of course she was powerful, but
there was no way she would be able to defend herself from Malign's power.
She was stopped in her tracks when Malign
balled his hand into a fist and raised it high into the air. Vitriol was also raised up into the air,
arms pinned to her sides. Then Malign
opened his fist and Vitriol was sent crashing back down to the ground. This was repeated several times, both side
of the punishment gravely silent.
When it finally stopped, Malign said: "now
that I have your attention, I shall go over the plan. That is, unless you have any further objections."
Vitriol vigorously shook her head and
Malign continued: "now, all is going according to plan, except one of the
children has found Rea." Vitriol
flinched at the sound of Rea's name, but said nothing. "You cannot let Rea be an asset to them. Eliminate her."
"But master—" Vitriol protested,
wishing she had never even heard of Rea before this moment.
Malign waved his hand, motioning her to be
silent and said: "now go. Eliminate Rea
and keep the possibility of an empire alive. Can you imagine how humiliating it would be to be defeated by a bunch of
kids? We must take every precaution and
be sure to keep the children in line."
Vitriol turned and ran from the cavern,
wishing above everything she had no family. How am I going to kill my
own sister? She wondered.
~*~
Nocuous smiled smugly. He was going to go down in history as the first
person that lived in the dream world to enter the real world. Not only that, he was going to go down as
the first person from the dream world to kill somebody from the real world.
His hunt: a twelve-year old boy. Blue hair. Glasses. Name: Jyou Kido. He couldn't believe the boy hadn't thought to look in his closet when seeing if his room was safe after receiving the telephone call from him.
It shall be his downfall, he thought, fingering the knife he held in his hand tenderly. Very slowly and deliberately, he pushed the door of the closet back, lunged at the bed and slashed with his knife. Mattress foam exploded everywhere—but the boy was gone!
Nocuous cursed when he noticed the open window. Kid's smarter than he looks, he thought. Climbed down the fire escape. I'll still find him. With those thoughts, Nocuous jumped from the sixth story window, landed easily on his feet and ran down the road after his quarry….
~*~
Mimi stiffened, startled by a sudden noise. "What was that?" she whispered.
"What? I didn't hear anything," Izzy answered.
"Listen," Mimi
hissed.
Izzy strained his ears and
heard the smallest shuffling noise—like somebody dragging their feet.
"I hear it," TK
whimpered, a little frightened.
"Hear what?" Sora
asked, joining in on the conversation.
Matt answered: "that
shuffling noise. It's heading toward
us."
"What can we do?" Mimi
whispered. She was trembling ever so
slightly, frightened at the possibilities of what could be making the noise.
"Well, I'll tell you
what I'm not going to do," Matt muttered. "I'm not going to sit in here
totally helpless and wait for whatever's out there to come get us." He picked up the best weapon he could find—a
cinder block—and left the room.
"Matt!" TK whispered
after him, but his older brother was already gone.
There was a tense silence,
then Matt's voice came to them: "you guys are never going to believe this!"
Izzy, Mimi, Sora and TK ran
into the deserted hallway and stopped abruptly when they saw the young woman
with sea green hair and sapphire eyes. She was holding Kari in her arms.
"This is Rea," Kari explained. "She helped me find you guys. And she knows why we're here…."