"So, what's going to happen to me?" Davis asked the creature before him. It had identified itself as "Lord Horribus," the leader of the Dimension of Pain. The creature lived up to its name. He was a sickly blue color, with glowing eyes that pierced the soul, making Davis shiver. He had spikes protruding from his back and ram's horns growing from his head.
"We will torture you until your will is broken and you agree to open the gate to your dimension so we can enslave it," Lord Horribus responded.
"And how are you going to torture me?"
"Hooks and spikes piercing your flesh, shredding and ripping you. Salt in your open gaping wounds. The hottest flames imaginable, and then some, PURE PAIN, PURE AGONY!!!!"
"That's a relief, I thought you'd show me Nick at Nite nonstop."
"Even WE have limits," Lord Horribus said, horrified at the concept, but recovering quickly. "Reakk," he motioned to a rather foul looking red demon, with pointed ears and sharp teeth, "Fit him into one of the Maximum Torture Devices."
"Got it," he fitted each of Davis's limbs onto jumper cables.
The machinations pulled on his arms and legs, stretching them out. The cables then poured a huge voltage of electricity into his body. A group of whip toting demons began to flog Davis, who screamed in agony. After about half an hour into the torture, the cables relaxed, the voltage went down, and the demons gave up. But still, Davis, the stubborn guy, yelled, "That really hurt, you SOB!"
"Stretched limbs, electrocution, and whipping have not broken you yet?" Lord Horribus was puzzled.
"No, but it's really starting to PISS ME OFF!"
The demon lord shrank back, "You must have had serious military training."
"Nope. I have a Veemon."
None of the torture methods at the demon lord's disposal seemed
to do anything, "That Davis is a tough one, but we will break him soon,"
he turned to Reakk, "did you re-leash Davis?"
The red demon was shocked, "'Re-LEASH?' I thought you said
'RELEASE!'"
Lord Horribus looked on to discover Davis fleeing, "DAVIS HAS
ESCAPED!" he yelled to his demons, "AFTER HIM!"
He turned to Reakk, "You fool! Well, the hunt is on.
Bring my Hell-Spear. I trust you sharpened it like I asked you to."
Reakk was shocked once more, "'SHARPEN?' I thought you
said 'SHORTEN'"
Normally, this would earn the little red demon a sound thrashing,
followed by a three hour long viewing of "Monster Rancher," known by some
as the most evil form of anime on the planet (except by the author, who
rather likes it). However, these were not normal times. Lord
Horribus could only hope his greatest fear would not come true.
After a bit of chasing, his greatest fear did come true.
"He made it to the Sacred Circle of Protection!" Reakk called,
"we can't touch him as long as he stays there!"
Davis was about to run out of the circle until he heard those
words, "Hey, thanks for the info!" he called out to Reakk.
Lord Horribus roared, then stared down his lackey, "Keep silent,
fool!"
Reakk looked apologetically, "Don't be mad, boss! At least
I didn't tell him about your Beanie Baby collection!"
Davis took the opportunity to use this bit of info, "Aww, does
de wittle demon cowect Beanies? How Ceeee-ute!"
Lord Horribus' eyes began to glow a deep red. Reakk muttered
out a tiny "Uh-oh!"
Back in Davis' home dimension…
"Have you two located him yet?" Kari asked Cody and Ken.
Ken responded, "This is tougher than I suspected, and we don't
have the right kind of software for this job, so we're just crossing off
the miscalculated dimensions manually."
"On these chewed up pieces of paper?" Yolei inquired, holding
up a rather chewed scrap of paper with names of dimensions on them.
Ken immediately knew the culprit, "DemiVeemon!"
DemiVeemon opened an eye and said, "Oh, were those papers important?"
"YES!" Ken shouted
Veemon closed his eye, "Sucks to be you."
At this point, most of the demon army had dispersed, but remained
on guard nearby, in case Davis escaped. Four demons remained nearby.
Lord Horribus, Reakk, a purple Cyclops, and a green demoness that looked
like a cross between a snake and a girl, with giant blades instead of hands,
no mouth, and two snakes coming from her hair that talked for her.
"So," Davis inquired Lord Horribus, "where'd this 'Sacred Circle
of Protection' come from anyway?"
"Long ago," The demon lord began, "The Demon King decided to
make this place a dimension of Evil and Pain. The goddess of Goodness
was weaker than he, so he prevailed. He took all that was Good, and
balled it up. Then he stuffed it in a Ziploc bag, sealed it, and
tossed it on the bottom rack of the 'Fridge of the Heavens.'"
"And this spot?"
"The bag leaked."
"Cheap bags?"
"We told him to use the expensive Ziplocs, but he felt the budget
bags were more evil."
Reakk entered with another rendition, "I heard the King was letting
the air out of the bag (known as "burping the bag" in culinary circles)
and some Goodness escaped."
"Burping the bag is very important for freshness," the Cyclops
said, "But some attribute it to cheap plastic wrap."
"He should have used tinfoil!" the snake demon interrupted.
"You can't microwave something wrapped in tinfoil!" the Cyclops
demon said, shocked.
"Why would he want to microwave Goodness?"
"All right! I don't CARE anymore!" Davis interrupted.
"No matter," the demon lord dismissed the squabbling, "You may
be physically safe in the Sacred Circle, but we can trick your mind.
We will use your greatest fear against you!"
Davis yawned. Until he saw what the demons had created.
It was more horrifying than he could have imagined…
"Hey, Goggle Boy! I've fathered a bunch of kids for you
to look after. Have fun!" Veemon said, leaving behind a swarm of
DemiVeemon.
"Dork!"
"Knocker-head!"
"Jerk!"
"Loser!"
"Gumbo-brain!"
"Spaz!"
"Wuss!"
Reakk was puzzled, "His greatest fear is baby bunny-dragons?"
Lord Horribus cowered behind his red lackey, "Make them go away
now!"
"Psych!" Lord Horribus yelled after several failed attempts to
scare Davis, "Why can't we use his fears against him?"
Psych, the purple Cyclops monster, was poring through a book
wearing reading glasses shaped for one eye, "The long of it is, he does
not explore consequences in depth, so he has no fears of the unknown."
He moved closer, "And his memories are limited, so he has no
fears of his past."
He removed the glasses and closed the book, "In fact, the only
things he seems to 'fear' stem from different things. Simpler things
that normally we would not even regard."
That's when it clicked for Davis, "Hey, are you saying I'm too
stupid to be afraid?
"That's the short of it."
Kari appeared before Davis, wearing nothing but a thong bikini,
"Come with me Davis," she said, "We'll have loads of fun."
She began to dance around outside the Sacred Circle of Protection
in a very erotic way. Davis didn't appear to even notice, his arms
folded.
Finally, Reakk pulled off the Kari mask, yelling, "HE AIN'T BUYING
IT!!!"
Later, Lord Horribus and Reakk were outside the Sacred Circle
of Protection, now with a classic Chinese torture device, "This water torture
device will make you leave the Sacred Circle of Protection. The continuous
sound of dripping water will surely drive you mad," Lord Horribus said.
"Drip, drip, drip, drip," continuously played out. Several
hours passed, until finally, he couldn't stand it anymore. He was
driven mad!
"All right! All right! I'll talk!" Reakk shouted, "I stole
your teddy bear!"
Lord Horribus scowled, "Not you, you idiot-" then he realized…
"YOU STOLE MR. BOO-BOO?" his whole body was glowing deep orange, sizzling
with heat.
Reakk cowered in fear, muttering only, "uh-oh."
"Look demons!" Davis yelled, "My toe is outside the Sacred Circle
of Protection!"
"I got him!"
Reakk leaped with the fury of a panther on a wicked candy corn
high or a demon that just had the tar whipped out of him and was followed
by a four hour viewing of "The Facts of Life." However, Davis quickly
pulled his foot back, leaving Reakk to land directly in the Sacred Circle.
"AAAH! I'M BURNING WITH GOODNESS AGAIN!" his body was set
aflame with white fire, similar to a Pop-Tart left in a toaster oven for
too long.
"That's the fifteenth time. Aren't you bored with that
by now?" Lord Horribus asked.
"Nope. It's still fun," Davis replied, "He's not all there,
is he?"
"You have no idea."
"PUT ME OUT! PUT ME OUT! PUT ME OUT!"
In the middle of Ken's room, there was a giant portal. Ken
was yelling at TK and Kari over the noise, "I found Davis, but this portal
is really unstable! The two of you have to grab him NOW! I'll
pull you both back!"
"Hell no!" TK yelled.
"You go do it!" Kari shouted.
"There's no time to argue!" Cody said, he pushed the two of them
into the portal, despite their vocal protests.
"We'll anchor you here!" Ken yelled. He was grabbing both
of TK's ankles, while Cody was doing the same for Kari.
DemiVeemon stepped between them, "Hey, if the portal closes,
won't they be cut in half?"
"Let me check our notes," Ken said, as he and Cody searched their
pockets for their notes on the subject. Unfortunately, this left
nothing to anchor TK and Kari. Cody and Ken did manage to snap out
of it long enough to catch them.
"That wasn't funny, DemiVeemon!" The two geniuses shouted at
the snickering Digimon.
Davis was wondering what was going to happen to him as the portal
opened. TK and Kari, well, most of them came out.
"Davis, come on, we're here to rescue you!" TK called out.
"Took you guys long enough," Davis sulked.
"Hurry, the portal's closing!" Kari yelled, grabbing Davis and
pulling him in. The portal closed milliseconds later.
"Damn, almost had him!" Lord Horribus yelled, pulling the mask
from his TK costume.
"Oh well," Reakk said, taking the mask off his now fully dressed
Kari costume, "Up for a game of Scrapple?"
"The game is called SCRABBLE! SCRABBLE, DAMN IT!"
"Does this shirt make me look fat?"
"Welcome home, Davis," Yolei greeted him, "It's great to have
you back!"
"That auto-locater we built worked like a charm. As always,"
Ken and Cody had a triumphant look that they never before had after making
a new invention.
Kari pulled Davis into a very loving hug, "I'm so glad you're
back. It hurt every second you were gone," she looked Davis over,
"Oh no, did they hurt you?"
"Don't worry, we'll fix him up," TK said cheerfully, "Just lie
back, and I'll get you a new jacket and a med-kit, buddy!"
"Thanks, TS," Davis said, lying down on a lawn chair, intentionally
mispronouncing TK's name. In turn, TK, rather than correcting him,
laughed out loud, as though he were hearing an old joke.
"Maybe a backrub will make you feel better," Kari said, massaging
him.
DemiVeemon responded from next to Wormmon, and, with chipper
he lost weeks ago, "Look, Wormmon, Davis is back! Hurray!"
Wormmon gave him an enraged look that never left his eyes before,
"Shut up fur ball, you're getting on my nerves!"
"Hi folks," Davis said to the reader, "I'm fully aware that I'm
not in my proper dimension, but hey, Kari's in love with me, TK's my best
friend, Yolei isn't mad at me, Cody and Ken's inventions work, DemiVeemon
is nice, I think I'm staying!"
Meanwhile, back in Davis's home dimension…
"I think we rescued the wrong Davis, everybody," Kari said.
"What gave you that idea?" Yolei sarcastically asked.
"The futuristic clothes?" Cody ventured.
"The purple hair?" TK supplied.
"The fact that he only speaks Portuguese?" Ken volunteered.
"Ola!" the alternate Davis said, "Posso ir a sua casa de banho?"
Pause, "Por favor?"
"Okay," Kari said, "so you figured it out too.