Alter Ego
* * *
Part III: Entrance
* * *
Yeah, hi, boring old me again. As usual, I make no claims on the posession of 95% of the ideas, characters, and settings (After all, if I owned Digimon, I'd be putting all these ideas into the show!). I also make the warning that from this point onward, I would have to rate this story 'R'. In the next two parts, there will be references to various unpleasantries, and I don't want younger readers to stumble across them. As usual, enjoy!
* * *
This is yor last chance to leave before things get really unpleasant.
I mean it! Although I don't want to reveal anything, this part is rated R-almost NC17 for a VERY GOOD REASON!
So, if you can't handle that, turn back before it's too late!
* * *
\\A man was trapped in a cage, locked in by twin jailers. He beat at the iron walls, screaming for justice. The guards only turned deaf ears to him.
"Why don't you let him go?" he asked them. They shook their heads, replying,
"He is an inconvenience." He stepped forward, and threw the guards aside. They screamed at him as he slammed a fist through the iron, and the prisoner smiled at him.
"Thank you, you fool! For freeing me, I will give you all you desire, and all you fear..." In a moment, the man was gone and inside him, and he recognized it as the darkness that had called to him.
* * *
"You tricked me! You said it was a game!"
...I never said that...You thought it was a game...I did not dissuade you...
"It's the same thing!"
...Is it?...
"Get out of my head!"
...I told you, you can't make me leave...
"Then you won't...but I won't let you win!" And then the man was trapped as before, deep in a prison within his soul. "I may not be free of you, but I will make sure no one must see you again."//
* * *
"Ken-chan? Ken-chan? Ken-chan!" Ken's eyes snapped open to the pleading tone in Daisuke's voice. The redhead threw himself into Ken, his eyes tearing. "Thank god! You got all distant, and you weren't responding, and Minomon was panicking, and I-"
"I'm all right, Daisuke," Ken said flatly, turning away. Daisuke placed a nervous hand on Ken's shoulder, but then Jyou spoke.
"Before you blacked out, you said Cæsar was the Latin equivalent of Kaiser. Does this mean that-"
"No! I mean, I don't know...I keep blacking out like that. I'll have dreams, and I think I see him, but...it's like back then, but I'm not making a choice. I don't know...maybe he's trying to take over again..." He trailed off, and consciously laced his arms around Daisuke's waist. "Sometimes, I would black out back then, and I wouldn't remember what I'd done-But he preferred me to make a choice." He carefully turned Daisuke to the side so they were sitting next to each other on Daisuke's bed.
"So now what to we do?" Taichi looked at the others anxiously.
"We could charge in like idiots and demand the Kaiser give up now...OR we could carefully-" The computer began to hum, and an image projected from the screen. A cloud of dust hovered in the room, and a voice spoke from its center.
"Hello, Digidestined. I bring word to you from my master, Cæsar. You see, he has destroyed the Digital World, and created his own in its place. He invites you to challenge him there. If you win, he will be destroyed. If he wins, well...let's say you'll be glad he only kills you. In 24 hours, if you have not responded, he will assume you have declined his challenge. He will proceed to conquer all existing worlds, and you will wish he HAD killed you. Ja ne." The creature bowed (or rather, contracted downward), and vanished.
"Well, it seems our decision has been made for us," Koushiro said simply.
* * *
Jun sat in the kitchen, staring at the wall. The Digital World? Digimon? It had to have some meaning, something beyond the names, the actions. Being loud and particularly annoying had its perks. No one ever suspected that she was eavesdropping; after all, how could anyone miss her? And with what she'd been able to glean about the Digidestined, she imagined some of the things she'd attributed to heat or bad clams were in fact indicators of her status as one. She wondered briefly if it was a family thing. However...it seemed one needed a 'Digivice' to get there, so her problem was obtaining one. Because if she ever got there, she was sure she could identify the one hint that was eluding her, something that would explain this Kaiser thing, the World of Darkness, and the rest. But it was all moot; she didn't have a Digivice.
* * *
"Guys, we do have time to prepare for this, you know, think things over," Iori protested. Takeru placed a hand on his shoulder comfortingly.
"Hey, there's 12 of us. There isn't anything so bad that we can't handle it."
"That's easy for you to say; you've got the Crest of Hope," he muttered. "I have to deal with Knowledge, and that's telling me this is a bad idea."
"You know, it might be a good idea to drag me along on this little escapade," Julienne pointed out. "I have seen this man before, and I may be able to remember something useful about him-"
"We know all there is to know about him. He's the Digimon Kaiser, Ken's alter ego," Miyako said curtly.
"You're being unfair here, Miyako. The only person who's actually seen him was hypnotized at the time. For all we know, that shadow could be some Mega Digimon trying to hide behind the Kaiser's image," Daisuke snapped back. "Ken's gone through enough without you trying to make him feel like it's his fault."
"Yeah, well, he's the only person who called himself the Kaiser, and he admitted himself that the Kaiser took over when he had blackouts like those! And on another note, I don't think it's a good idea to take him with us," she added. Daisuke wrapped a protective arm around Ken, and retorted,
"Miyako, it's that sort of baseless accusation that made Ken so unwilling to help us before! If you could just-"
"Please, just stop!" Ken pleaded. "Just do something about this; don't shout about it like this."
"Yeah, it's giving me a headache," Gatomon added.
"Well, I think we should all go, and if Ken seems to have difficulty, we can take steps to alleviate his discomfort," Koushiro piped up.
"Or we could wait around until he decides to become the Kaiser again, and we'll all die," Jyou muttered.
"Faith, shmaith," Mimi said humorlessly, "Jyou doesn't have a positive bone in his body." As the Digidestined grew into a babble of voices, no one heard Ken shout,
"Hey! What're you doing with that?"
"Digiport, Open!" Julienne snapped, and a moment later, she was gone into the Dark World. The room fell silent, and they all stared at the screen.
"It seems that my hypothesis that the Digivices are keys to a door anyone can open is correct," Koushiro said blandly.
"Yeah, well, let's just get going, shall we?" Yamato said angrily.
"Not with that attitude, we won't!" Taichi said cheerfully.
"And what attitude should I-mmph!" There was a collective eye-roll as Yamato was pinned to the wall by what somewhat obviously was a kiss with tongue.
"We're not going anywhere soon," Takeru noted somewhat gloomily.
* * *
"Let's see, carry the two, and...ah! There we go. Pulveramon!" The black cloud slipped into the Kaiser's chambers.
"Yes, Master?"
"I've finished my program. Go prepare the-special-quarters."
"Yes, Master," the creature mumbled, and floated away.
"Lousy parasite," Kaiser murmured.
* * *
"Oof!" Julienne stood up, and smiled. She hadn't landed in a dungeon or anything. That was good. However, whatever room she was in was...pitch black. Well, she could handle it. She just needed to find a door-ah! There; one was opening.
"Uh oh." She caught a glimpse of a shadow, before the door slammed shut. Julienne looked down at the Digivice she had borrowed. She couldn't see it, but she knew it belonged to that Ken kid. Apparently, he had had dealings with the Kaiser before, so maybe the man was trying to trap him here. Well, she had wanted to track down the Kaiser, so here she was.
* * *
"Let's just go!" Miyako snapped. She stalked over to the computer, and held out her Digivice. "Digiport-" When the Digivice was sensed, the computer erupted in a flash of light, and when the afterimage cleared, the Digidestined had been absorbed into it. Like a Venus flytrap after snapping around a fly, the computer was still.
* * *
"Ow!"
"Where are we?"
"I don't know, but it's dark."
"Gee, you think?"
"Is that Miyako?"
"No; I'm over here!"
"Mimi, this is not the time for-"
"I'm not Mimi." A slapping sound.
"What was that for?"
"That was your hand on my butt!"
"Heh heh, I thought you were Yamato."
"That is too much information."
"Daisuke!"
"Takeru? Um...you sounded like Ken?"
"By the way, where is he?"
"Ken?"
"No, Gennai. Of course I mean Ken!"
"Jyou, calm down."
"I don't think he's even in this room."
"Then where is he?"
"I think we should focus on getting out of this room first." There was a sudden burst of static, and a voice came from the walls.
* * *
"Hello, Digidestined. I'm glad you could make it." The Kaiser's voice echoed through the room. "As you've noticed, I have you nicely trussed up in here. Take a moment to count yourselves." He was silent a moment.
"You see, Daisuke? It's Ken's voice!" Miyako snapped.
"It's the Kaiser's voice!" Daisuke responded. "It's not the same-"
"I'll bet you'll have noticied one of your party is missing. Well, actually, two. I quite assure you both are safe. Miss Maxis is of great use to me, and as for Mr. Ichijouji, well...I suppose it doesn't take a boy genius to figure *that* one out. I'll be in shortly to check on you. Ta ta!" The voice cut off.
"That WAS Ken!" Miyako said smugly.
"You don't have any proof!" Daisuke retorted.
"Um, guys-"
"But that was his voice, and he hinted at-"
"He just said that we could figure out what happened to Ken for ourselves! He didn't-"
"SHUT UP!" The two turned in Iori's direction, and saw him quite visibly.
"Um, where's the light coming from?" Daisuke asked. Iori pointed behind him.
"There's a room there. It opened after the Kaiser stopped talking." Taichi stepped over to the door through which light was streaming. He peered at it, and walked back.
"It says, 'Arachne'. What does that mean?"
"Spiders, or, rather, members of the family Arachnid," Koushiro said flatly.
"Miyako, please tell me that's your hand on my leg," Hikari said nervously.
"Um, Hika-chan, I'm over here." Hikari screamed piercingly, and it soon became evident that thousands of small spiders had crawled from the room into their prison.
"Are they poisonous?" Daisuke asked, slapping a few with his hands.
"Quite," the Kaiser's amused voice responded. "They aren't found in the real world, but I assure you, they're quite deadly." Suddenly, Mimi's voice cut through the panic.
"You idiots! Stop slapping the freaking bugs and use the Digimon!"
* * *
Greymon vaporized another line of spiders, and behind him, Garurumon was burning hordes of them with blue fire.
"Well, it took them long enough to do so," the Kaiser muttered. "Pulveramon, have you fixed your mistake?"
"Yes, Master."
"Then make sure my amusement is ready for my attentions. You have until I return."
"Where are you going, Master?"
"To confirm the Digidestined's suspicions."
* * *
"Did anyone get bitten?"
"Thankfully, no," Jyou responded. "I wouldn't know how to fight the poison."
"So what was the point of that?" Mimi asked, exasperated.
"Maybe he just wanted to judge our strength," Sora proposed.
"That's really quite a noble suggestion, but I just was hoping I'd knock a few of you out of the way. Frankly, I'm disappointed with your skill." The Kaiser, in his full regalia, stepped through the door to the spider room, and stood before them. He was every inch the person they remembered. "I certainly expected you to handle them much faster. But then again, youu're old and out of practice." He laughed. "I've been planning this for years." Daisuke, visibly shaking, spoke up.
"You're not really Ken, are you?"
"Is there really any doubt of it?" The Kaiser reached to his belt, and unhooked his whip. "I'll tell you this, strike me with the whip, and we'll see who I am." He threw it lightly to the redhead, and stepped forward, arms spread. Daisuke caught the whip deftly, and let it unwind. He approached the Kaiser, and raised it. But then, he threw it aside, letting out a half-sob.
"I can't do it!" The Kaiser smiled.
"Your faith in your boyfriend is overwhelming, Dai-chan." Daisuke's eyes flashed angrily, and he shouted,
"Don't call me that!"
"Why not?"
"Yo-He-he's not you," Daisuke responded, trembling and stumbling over his words.
"You know, I once called you my worthy adversary," Kaiser began. "But now I see I was quite mistaken. You are a fool, Daisuke, because you can not see what is plainly under your nose." He turned and stalked away, allowing the door to close behind him. Daisuke only stared after the Kaiser, tears streaming down his face.
"I can't believe he'd-" He couldn't finish his sentence. Hikari, warding the others off, sat down next to him and hugged him comfortingly.
"None of us can, Dai-chan. But it just seems so much like it."
* * *
'Where am I?' He knew where he was. He had sensed it in the air. He could smell the salt of the Dark Ocean even here. He also knew what was to happen to him. He was chained to this room, and he was quite sure he had been relieved of his clothing. Now all he had to do was wait.
"Hello, Ken." He started, and saw the figure enter the room. "It's a pleasure to see you again. I thought I never would, you know. After our little misunderstanding." He didn't need to look at his captor to know he was smiling. "I'll bet you're wondering how I got here."
"I'm not. I know how you did it. You seem to forget that I'm a genius."
"Ah, but I have always been a step ahead. Now, it is the time for your torture, Ken-chan."
"Am I to be whipped? Beated?"
"In some capacity. You see, the only drawback to a beating is that it scars the body, leaves marks of its occurrence. So I found this cute little device, and made use of it. You read Asimov?" A curt nod. "Do you remember the concept of a neuronic whip?" Another nod. "Well, I thought it was a lovely idea. A weapon which stimulates the pain sensors, leaving a person in constant ache, yet with the body untouched. A brilliant objective."
"And that is how you will torture me."
"More or less." There was an electronic crackling, and he suddenly felt a knife-keen pain rip through his shoulder, travel through his side, suddenly cutting through his neck, the pain unbearable, uncomparable! And then it was gone. "This item has five settings. That was the lowest. Let's go up one, shall we?" Ken didn't remember if he screamed, but he did know that he had begged, yes, *begged* for mercy.
* * *
"They said that when a Digimon dies, it is reformatted, and I suspect that the World of Darkness is an extension of the Digiworld, so-" Jun scratched out a few notes, and smiled. It had to be right! She wasn't what you would call a computer whiz, or a mathematician, but she knew she had to be right. So now all she had to do was find a way to get there. She could help them against their enemy. She just needed to find a way there...
* * *
"Now, wasn't that lovely?" Ken twitched on the ground, whimpering. The Kaiser laughed. "Well, this will seem almost an anticlimax, but I've wished this for a very long time." There was a faint rustle of cloth, but Ken didn't even notice the sounds. All he could focus on was the pain in his chest, his stomach, his arms, neck... "This is a pleasure that I will treasure forever, *Ken-chan*." And then Ken realized that his captor had struck his chest, his head, crippled his legs, but he had left one area alone, that he had planned this, because he wanted Ken to feel everything...
"Just leave me alone, please, just leave me..." Ken didn't know who was talking, but it sounded like himself.
"I think I'll decline. I think you might enjoy this as well." And then Ken's world shattered into pain again, but this time marred with the wrongness of what was happening. The pain, the helplessnes, the terror, and above it all, the Kaiser laughing, reveling in the pain and the pleasure involved, and readying for the finish...Ken knew that this time he screamed.
* * *
There was another rustle of cloth, and the sound of steps.
"I had a great time, Ken-chan. Unfortunately, I have bigger fish to fry. Maybe we can get together again sometime." The Kaiser slammed the door after himself, letting the last noise his prisoner heard be the chuckle rising in his throat. Ken didn't respond, laying in pain, humiliation, and exhaustion on the stone floor. Occasionally, he would whimper, and his lips would form into the word "Dai." And yet he remained alone.
* * *
"What did you do to that poor boy?"
...You did it, too...
"Why did you do it?"
...Because I'm a sadist...
"Why do you keep insisting *I* had a hand in this?"
...Because if you really wanted, you can stop me from doing something. I would have killed them before, but my...host stopped me from doing so...
"You are a bastard, you know."
...Thank you...
* * *
Eep. Listen, I didn't mean for this to happen. The idea just formed, and it came out here. Please don't yell at me. Please rest assured that things will get better, including the return of Jun! (It might not be that good a thing, but it's still better than this) Anyway, I do really hope you don't all hate me for this part.
* * *
Part III: Entrance
* * *
Yeah, hi, boring old me again. As usual, I make no claims on the posession of 95% of the ideas, characters, and settings (After all, if I owned Digimon, I'd be putting all these ideas into the show!). I also make the warning that from this point onward, I would have to rate this story 'R'. In the next two parts, there will be references to various unpleasantries, and I don't want younger readers to stumble across them. As usual, enjoy!
* * *
This is yor last chance to leave before things get really unpleasant.
I mean it! Although I don't want to reveal anything, this part is rated R-almost NC17 for a VERY GOOD REASON!
So, if you can't handle that, turn back before it's too late!
* * *
\\A man was trapped in a cage, locked in by twin jailers. He beat at the iron walls, screaming for justice. The guards only turned deaf ears to him.
"Why don't you let him go?" he asked them. They shook their heads, replying,
"He is an inconvenience." He stepped forward, and threw the guards aside. They screamed at him as he slammed a fist through the iron, and the prisoner smiled at him.
"Thank you, you fool! For freeing me, I will give you all you desire, and all you fear..." In a moment, the man was gone and inside him, and he recognized it as the darkness that had called to him.
* * *
"You tricked me! You said it was a game!"
...I never said that...You thought it was a game...I did not dissuade you...
"It's the same thing!"
...Is it?...
"Get out of my head!"
...I told you, you can't make me leave...
"Then you won't...but I won't let you win!" And then the man was trapped as before, deep in a prison within his soul. "I may not be free of you, but I will make sure no one must see you again."//
* * *
"Ken-chan? Ken-chan? Ken-chan!" Ken's eyes snapped open to the pleading tone in Daisuke's voice. The redhead threw himself into Ken, his eyes tearing. "Thank god! You got all distant, and you weren't responding, and Minomon was panicking, and I-"
"I'm all right, Daisuke," Ken said flatly, turning away. Daisuke placed a nervous hand on Ken's shoulder, but then Jyou spoke.
"Before you blacked out, you said Cæsar was the Latin equivalent of Kaiser. Does this mean that-"
"No! I mean, I don't know...I keep blacking out like that. I'll have dreams, and I think I see him, but...it's like back then, but I'm not making a choice. I don't know...maybe he's trying to take over again..." He trailed off, and consciously laced his arms around Daisuke's waist. "Sometimes, I would black out back then, and I wouldn't remember what I'd done-But he preferred me to make a choice." He carefully turned Daisuke to the side so they were sitting next to each other on Daisuke's bed.
"So now what to we do?" Taichi looked at the others anxiously.
"We could charge in like idiots and demand the Kaiser give up now...OR we could carefully-" The computer began to hum, and an image projected from the screen. A cloud of dust hovered in the room, and a voice spoke from its center.
"Hello, Digidestined. I bring word to you from my master, Cæsar. You see, he has destroyed the Digital World, and created his own in its place. He invites you to challenge him there. If you win, he will be destroyed. If he wins, well...let's say you'll be glad he only kills you. In 24 hours, if you have not responded, he will assume you have declined his challenge. He will proceed to conquer all existing worlds, and you will wish he HAD killed you. Ja ne." The creature bowed (or rather, contracted downward), and vanished.
"Well, it seems our decision has been made for us," Koushiro said simply.
* * *
Jun sat in the kitchen, staring at the wall. The Digital World? Digimon? It had to have some meaning, something beyond the names, the actions. Being loud and particularly annoying had its perks. No one ever suspected that she was eavesdropping; after all, how could anyone miss her? And with what she'd been able to glean about the Digidestined, she imagined some of the things she'd attributed to heat or bad clams were in fact indicators of her status as one. She wondered briefly if it was a family thing. However...it seemed one needed a 'Digivice' to get there, so her problem was obtaining one. Because if she ever got there, she was sure she could identify the one hint that was eluding her, something that would explain this Kaiser thing, the World of Darkness, and the rest. But it was all moot; she didn't have a Digivice.
* * *
"Guys, we do have time to prepare for this, you know, think things over," Iori protested. Takeru placed a hand on his shoulder comfortingly.
"Hey, there's 12 of us. There isn't anything so bad that we can't handle it."
"That's easy for you to say; you've got the Crest of Hope," he muttered. "I have to deal with Knowledge, and that's telling me this is a bad idea."
"You know, it might be a good idea to drag me along on this little escapade," Julienne pointed out. "I have seen this man before, and I may be able to remember something useful about him-"
"We know all there is to know about him. He's the Digimon Kaiser, Ken's alter ego," Miyako said curtly.
"You're being unfair here, Miyako. The only person who's actually seen him was hypnotized at the time. For all we know, that shadow could be some Mega Digimon trying to hide behind the Kaiser's image," Daisuke snapped back. "Ken's gone through enough without you trying to make him feel like it's his fault."
"Yeah, well, he's the only person who called himself the Kaiser, and he admitted himself that the Kaiser took over when he had blackouts like those! And on another note, I don't think it's a good idea to take him with us," she added. Daisuke wrapped a protective arm around Ken, and retorted,
"Miyako, it's that sort of baseless accusation that made Ken so unwilling to help us before! If you could just-"
"Please, just stop!" Ken pleaded. "Just do something about this; don't shout about it like this."
"Yeah, it's giving me a headache," Gatomon added.
"Well, I think we should all go, and if Ken seems to have difficulty, we can take steps to alleviate his discomfort," Koushiro piped up.
"Or we could wait around until he decides to become the Kaiser again, and we'll all die," Jyou muttered.
"Faith, shmaith," Mimi said humorlessly, "Jyou doesn't have a positive bone in his body." As the Digidestined grew into a babble of voices, no one heard Ken shout,
"Hey! What're you doing with that?"
"Digiport, Open!" Julienne snapped, and a moment later, she was gone into the Dark World. The room fell silent, and they all stared at the screen.
"It seems that my hypothesis that the Digivices are keys to a door anyone can open is correct," Koushiro said blandly.
"Yeah, well, let's just get going, shall we?" Yamato said angrily.
"Not with that attitude, we won't!" Taichi said cheerfully.
"And what attitude should I-mmph!" There was a collective eye-roll as Yamato was pinned to the wall by what somewhat obviously was a kiss with tongue.
"We're not going anywhere soon," Takeru noted somewhat gloomily.
* * *
"Let's see, carry the two, and...ah! There we go. Pulveramon!" The black cloud slipped into the Kaiser's chambers.
"Yes, Master?"
"I've finished my program. Go prepare the-special-quarters."
"Yes, Master," the creature mumbled, and floated away.
"Lousy parasite," Kaiser murmured.
* * *
"Oof!" Julienne stood up, and smiled. She hadn't landed in a dungeon or anything. That was good. However, whatever room she was in was...pitch black. Well, she could handle it. She just needed to find a door-ah! There; one was opening.
"Uh oh." She caught a glimpse of a shadow, before the door slammed shut. Julienne looked down at the Digivice she had borrowed. She couldn't see it, but she knew it belonged to that Ken kid. Apparently, he had had dealings with the Kaiser before, so maybe the man was trying to trap him here. Well, she had wanted to track down the Kaiser, so here she was.
* * *
"Let's just go!" Miyako snapped. She stalked over to the computer, and held out her Digivice. "Digiport-" When the Digivice was sensed, the computer erupted in a flash of light, and when the afterimage cleared, the Digidestined had been absorbed into it. Like a Venus flytrap after snapping around a fly, the computer was still.
* * *
"Ow!"
"Where are we?"
"I don't know, but it's dark."
"Gee, you think?"
"Is that Miyako?"
"No; I'm over here!"
"Mimi, this is not the time for-"
"I'm not Mimi." A slapping sound.
"What was that for?"
"That was your hand on my butt!"
"Heh heh, I thought you were Yamato."
"That is too much information."
"Daisuke!"
"Takeru? Um...you sounded like Ken?"
"By the way, where is he?"
"Ken?"
"No, Gennai. Of course I mean Ken!"
"Jyou, calm down."
"I don't think he's even in this room."
"Then where is he?"
"I think we should focus on getting out of this room first." There was a sudden burst of static, and a voice came from the walls.
* * *
"Hello, Digidestined. I'm glad you could make it." The Kaiser's voice echoed through the room. "As you've noticed, I have you nicely trussed up in here. Take a moment to count yourselves." He was silent a moment.
"You see, Daisuke? It's Ken's voice!" Miyako snapped.
"It's the Kaiser's voice!" Daisuke responded. "It's not the same-"
"I'll bet you'll have noticied one of your party is missing. Well, actually, two. I quite assure you both are safe. Miss Maxis is of great use to me, and as for Mr. Ichijouji, well...I suppose it doesn't take a boy genius to figure *that* one out. I'll be in shortly to check on you. Ta ta!" The voice cut off.
"That WAS Ken!" Miyako said smugly.
"You don't have any proof!" Daisuke retorted.
"Um, guys-"
"But that was his voice, and he hinted at-"
"He just said that we could figure out what happened to Ken for ourselves! He didn't-"
"SHUT UP!" The two turned in Iori's direction, and saw him quite visibly.
"Um, where's the light coming from?" Daisuke asked. Iori pointed behind him.
"There's a room there. It opened after the Kaiser stopped talking." Taichi stepped over to the door through which light was streaming. He peered at it, and walked back.
"It says, 'Arachne'. What does that mean?"
"Spiders, or, rather, members of the family Arachnid," Koushiro said flatly.
"Miyako, please tell me that's your hand on my leg," Hikari said nervously.
"Um, Hika-chan, I'm over here." Hikari screamed piercingly, and it soon became evident that thousands of small spiders had crawled from the room into their prison.
"Are they poisonous?" Daisuke asked, slapping a few with his hands.
"Quite," the Kaiser's amused voice responded. "They aren't found in the real world, but I assure you, they're quite deadly." Suddenly, Mimi's voice cut through the panic.
"You idiots! Stop slapping the freaking bugs and use the Digimon!"
* * *
Greymon vaporized another line of spiders, and behind him, Garurumon was burning hordes of them with blue fire.
"Well, it took them long enough to do so," the Kaiser muttered. "Pulveramon, have you fixed your mistake?"
"Yes, Master."
"Then make sure my amusement is ready for my attentions. You have until I return."
"Where are you going, Master?"
"To confirm the Digidestined's suspicions."
* * *
"Did anyone get bitten?"
"Thankfully, no," Jyou responded. "I wouldn't know how to fight the poison."
"So what was the point of that?" Mimi asked, exasperated.
"Maybe he just wanted to judge our strength," Sora proposed.
"That's really quite a noble suggestion, but I just was hoping I'd knock a few of you out of the way. Frankly, I'm disappointed with your skill." The Kaiser, in his full regalia, stepped through the door to the spider room, and stood before them. He was every inch the person they remembered. "I certainly expected you to handle them much faster. But then again, youu're old and out of practice." He laughed. "I've been planning this for years." Daisuke, visibly shaking, spoke up.
"You're not really Ken, are you?"
"Is there really any doubt of it?" The Kaiser reached to his belt, and unhooked his whip. "I'll tell you this, strike me with the whip, and we'll see who I am." He threw it lightly to the redhead, and stepped forward, arms spread. Daisuke caught the whip deftly, and let it unwind. He approached the Kaiser, and raised it. But then, he threw it aside, letting out a half-sob.
"I can't do it!" The Kaiser smiled.
"Your faith in your boyfriend is overwhelming, Dai-chan." Daisuke's eyes flashed angrily, and he shouted,
"Don't call me that!"
"Why not?"
"Yo-He-he's not you," Daisuke responded, trembling and stumbling over his words.
"You know, I once called you my worthy adversary," Kaiser began. "But now I see I was quite mistaken. You are a fool, Daisuke, because you can not see what is plainly under your nose." He turned and stalked away, allowing the door to close behind him. Daisuke only stared after the Kaiser, tears streaming down his face.
"I can't believe he'd-" He couldn't finish his sentence. Hikari, warding the others off, sat down next to him and hugged him comfortingly.
"None of us can, Dai-chan. But it just seems so much like it."
* * *
'Where am I?' He knew where he was. He had sensed it in the air. He could smell the salt of the Dark Ocean even here. He also knew what was to happen to him. He was chained to this room, and he was quite sure he had been relieved of his clothing. Now all he had to do was wait.
"Hello, Ken." He started, and saw the figure enter the room. "It's a pleasure to see you again. I thought I never would, you know. After our little misunderstanding." He didn't need to look at his captor to know he was smiling. "I'll bet you're wondering how I got here."
"I'm not. I know how you did it. You seem to forget that I'm a genius."
"Ah, but I have always been a step ahead. Now, it is the time for your torture, Ken-chan."
"Am I to be whipped? Beated?"
"In some capacity. You see, the only drawback to a beating is that it scars the body, leaves marks of its occurrence. So I found this cute little device, and made use of it. You read Asimov?" A curt nod. "Do you remember the concept of a neuronic whip?" Another nod. "Well, I thought it was a lovely idea. A weapon which stimulates the pain sensors, leaving a person in constant ache, yet with the body untouched. A brilliant objective."
"And that is how you will torture me."
"More or less." There was an electronic crackling, and he suddenly felt a knife-keen pain rip through his shoulder, travel through his side, suddenly cutting through his neck, the pain unbearable, uncomparable! And then it was gone. "This item has five settings. That was the lowest. Let's go up one, shall we?" Ken didn't remember if he screamed, but he did know that he had begged, yes, *begged* for mercy.
* * *
"They said that when a Digimon dies, it is reformatted, and I suspect that the World of Darkness is an extension of the Digiworld, so-" Jun scratched out a few notes, and smiled. It had to be right! She wasn't what you would call a computer whiz, or a mathematician, but she knew she had to be right. So now all she had to do was find a way to get there. She could help them against their enemy. She just needed to find a way there...
* * *
"Now, wasn't that lovely?" Ken twitched on the ground, whimpering. The Kaiser laughed. "Well, this will seem almost an anticlimax, but I've wished this for a very long time." There was a faint rustle of cloth, but Ken didn't even notice the sounds. All he could focus on was the pain in his chest, his stomach, his arms, neck... "This is a pleasure that I will treasure forever, *Ken-chan*." And then Ken realized that his captor had struck his chest, his head, crippled his legs, but he had left one area alone, that he had planned this, because he wanted Ken to feel everything...
"Just leave me alone, please, just leave me..." Ken didn't know who was talking, but it sounded like himself.
"I think I'll decline. I think you might enjoy this as well." And then Ken's world shattered into pain again, but this time marred with the wrongness of what was happening. The pain, the helplessnes, the terror, and above it all, the Kaiser laughing, reveling in the pain and the pleasure involved, and readying for the finish...Ken knew that this time he screamed.
* * *
There was another rustle of cloth, and the sound of steps.
"I had a great time, Ken-chan. Unfortunately, I have bigger fish to fry. Maybe we can get together again sometime." The Kaiser slammed the door after himself, letting the last noise his prisoner heard be the chuckle rising in his throat. Ken didn't respond, laying in pain, humiliation, and exhaustion on the stone floor. Occasionally, he would whimper, and his lips would form into the word "Dai." And yet he remained alone.
* * *
"What did you do to that poor boy?"
...You did it, too...
"Why did you do it?"
...Because I'm a sadist...
"Why do you keep insisting *I* had a hand in this?"
...Because if you really wanted, you can stop me from doing something. I would have killed them before, but my...host stopped me from doing so...
"You are a bastard, you know."
...Thank you...
* * *
Eep. Listen, I didn't mean for this to happen. The idea just formed, and it came out here. Please don't yell at me. Please rest assured that things will get better, including the return of Jun! (It might not be that good a thing, but it's still better than this) Anyway, I do really hope you don't all hate me for this part.