DISCLAIMER: I do not own Digimon or any of its characters. I just like to torture them. Please don't sue.
A/N: Not much has happened, hard to recap. All I did was basically explain the situation. Read on.
Davis and Kari were on the living room couch. She let him kiss her, and then when he leaned back, she went right with him. She kissed him, and he wrapped his arms around her waist. She had her arms around his neck. She giggled quietly. He kept leaning further back until he was laying down on the couch and Kari was laying on top of him.
"Kari..." he whispered. "I love you."
"I love you, too, Dai-kun, but I think we should go somewhere else to continue."
"Like where? My rooo--"
Kari placed a finger on his lips. "Maybe. But I'm not gonna fool around until you can give me a ring and a ceremony."
"I know that--I respect that--and Kari-chan, I wish I could give you those things. But I don't know if a marriage in the Digital World would be legal in the real world. If we ever got out..."
"Dai-kun, it's been six years. Don't you think that it's a little unlikely that we'll ever get out?"
"Well..."
Kari sighed, and laid her chin down on his chest, locking his eyes with hers. "I think that if we did get out, it would be legal. When someone moves to another country, their marriage is legal even if their ceremony is different than the customary one of the new country."
"Well, okay. But still, do you think we could get Ken to let us?"
Almost immediately, tears formed in her eyes. "I don't know, Dai-kun. I just don't know." She started to cry.
He ran his hand over her back reassuringly. "Shh...it's okay, Kari-chan. I'll do what I can as soon as I can."
Just then, a door opened. Kari jerked her head up and looked toward the doors of their suites. Nope. Nothing. She looked around and her eyes rested on a figure in the dark hallway outside the four walls.
"Who's there?"
Davis was on the alert. That heavy, metal door usually only opened at mealtimes, and that was a while off. He sat up, Kari in his lap. She backed off so that she was next to him. He grabbed hold of her shoulders. "Who are you?" he asked defensively, staring at the open doorway.
The dark figure of Ken, the Digimon Kaiser, came in through the door, followed by Wormmon.
Kari stiffened. Davis got in front of her. "If you want her, you have to get through me."
"How touching," Ken laughed. "But it doesn't matter. I am here to see all of you." He turned around. "Wormmon! Fetch the rest of them!"
"Yes, Master." Wormmon went to the doors of the other DigiDestined and quickly got them all out in the living room.
Ken surveyed the lot before him.
Takeru, better known as T.K., Takaishi. Looked like the typical American boy-next-door, even if he was Japanese. Tall, blond, blue-eyed. Maybe handsome. Ken wasn't sure what women thought of men. In fact, when it came to women, he had no clue whatsoever. But he knew the look in T.K.'s eyes at that moment would freeze fire.
Hikari, or just Kari, Kamiya. Pretty, but not worth wasting his time. He knew she loved Davis. Geez, their position when he had walked in--! She had let her hair grow out--just a little bit. It still didn't reach her shoulders. It framed her small, frightened face nicely. Ken wondered if she always looked like that or if it was the sight of him that was making her tremble. He figured it was his presence--Kari always had been scared of him and the powers of darkness he represented.
Daisuke You-better-call-me-Davis Motomiya. Still wearing those ridiculous goggles. What was the point? Sure, Ken himself wore those yellow sunglasses, but at least he wore his over his eyes. Davis's appearance had changed little, other than that he was taller, his jawline was stronger, his expression harder.
Iori, Cody to his friends, Hida. Just becoming a man. Tall. He'd been the shortest of the DigiDestined, short even for his age, and now he was six feet tall. Broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed. Of course, Ken was sure the eyes were as soft as they always had been when he wasn't around.
Miyako--who had always hated her name and asked to be called Yolei, which she liked a lot better--Inoue. She still wore the same kerchief, now well-worn, on her head. Her violet hair trailed down over her shoulders, and--and---what else could he tell? She was not looking up at him with a hard or frightened face as were the rest. In fact, she was looking at the floor.
He pulled his whip out. He held onto both ends, not flicking it out to hurt like usual. He made a loop of it, pulled it tight enough so it wouldn't flop, and placed it under Yolei's chin, pushing it upwards to force her to look at him.
Her eyes were closed underneath her wire-framed glasses.
"Look at me!" Ken demanded, pushing her face upward a little more.
It was starting to hurt Yolei, just a little, and she opened her eyes so suddenly it almost surprised Ken.
Those eyes--!
Her brown eyes were not harsh, nor scared. They were not admiring.
They were--surprised. Like she had--even in that split second--seen something in him she was not expecting.
"What's the matter, Inoue?" Ken spat. "You look like you've never seen a Kaiser before."
Suddenly she was angry. "I still haven't!"
Ken's anger came just as quickly. He withdrew the loop of whip from under her chin and smacked her over the head with it.
She put a hand over the spot, not saying anything, but staring at him contemptuously.
Ken stepped back a bit. "I am sure you're all wondering why I'm here."
T.K. frowned. "No, no, you lock us away for six years and then suddenly show up and drag us all out here. I'm not in the least curious."
"Shut up, Takaishi. I still haven't forgiven you for punching me that day and if I hear any more out of you you'll be duly punished." Ken lifted his whip in warning.
T.K. bit his lip. He was tempted to try punching him again, but the digimon slave guards that he knew were out in the hall made him keep his peace.
"Truthfully, there was no reason, other than to see how you like it here. Apparently being imprisoned has done you no physical harm. None of you look sick. Tell me, what do you think of this?"
No one spoke. Things were okay the way they were. If anyone complained, or asked for anything, there was a possibility he meant to give it to them, but on the other hand, he might use their complaining as an excuse to put them in a far worse situation.
But...
Davis raised his hand, almost as if he was in school.
Ken grinned, just a little, to himself. "Well, Motomiya, what is it?"
"Um...Ken, Kaiser, sir, um..."
Ken flicked his whip forward, not hitting Davis, but letting it dangle in his face. "I don't *have* all day. Just spit it out."
"Well...Kaiser...everything is great, except for two things."
"One being that you're here," Ken guessed.
"Well, yeah, that's not good, but I meant that if we *have* to stay here, there's two things wrong with being here." He paused.
"Well? What *are* they?" Ken was impatient as usual.
"Well, Kaiser sir, we have no idea what's going on outside. What happened to the Digital World? And what about our world? Our families?"
"Oh, that." Ken spat. "I'll have one of my slaves bring you the records and after that a daily report on the Digital World. I can't get information about the real world. I've tried. What's the other thing?"
"Well, Kaiser, sir...Kari and I want to get married."
The other four jerked their heads up, even Kari. Not because of the want, that was no surprise, but the fact that Davis dared to ask for it.
Ken laughed. "Well, what should it matter to me? Why shouldn't you? But I don't think the Digital World has a marriage ceremony."
Davis frowned. "We just want a ceremony and papers stating it's legal so that--so that--"
"So that when I die and you get to go home people won't call you shameless?"
"We get to go home when you die?" Cody asked.
Ken smirked. "Sure, why should I care then? But the odds are in my favor. I'll probably long outlive all of you. Motomiya--when?"
Davis blinked and looked at Kari. "What do you think?"
"Dai-kun, we've been together for five years...I don't care if we are only nineteen...I'm ready anytime."
Davis hugged her close, and turned his face toward Ken. "You heard her. As soon as possible."
Ken nodded. "So be it." He turned on his heel and left the room, the door closing behind him.
The sound of the lock clicking had never been louder.
The records of the Digital World were brought that night. The five took turns reading aloud. It was a horrible experience, but one that none of them would have missed for anything in their present situation.
Everything was under Ken's control. He really was Kaiser over the entire Digital World, and no one complained because there was only one living Digimon that did not have a Dark Spiral, and that was Wormmon. Even the DigiDestined's digimon were under the spell. Veemon, Hawkmon, Armadillomon, Patamon, and Gatomon were Ken's personal slaves.
"So that's why he didn't kill them. It was more fun to rub it in," T.K. said. "I always wondered."
Kari started crying, softly. "I never did. I was just too grateful that they were alive to care why."
Davis put an arm around her. "It's all right, Kari-chan. You're right. All that matters is that they're alive."
They were up late, reading the stack of papers that chronicled the happenings of the Digital World. "It's terrible," Cody said, hugging his knees to his chest. "All those Digimon...and none having free will. It's injustice."
Ken was up late himself, but for a very different reason.
At nights he was not the Digimon Kaiser. He was alone. There was no one to call him Master.
He did not wear the glasses, jumpsuit, and cape that had become his trademark. He washed the gel out of his hair in the shower and it calmed down, becoming straight and falling close to his head again. He put on soft gray pajamas, and looked almost like he had before the whole Kaiser thing had started.
And for the few minutes he allowed himself to think about it, he was not the Kaiser.
He was just Ken.
Ken Ichijouji.
That night, the thought of his own name made him smile. It had been so long since anyone had said it. He said it aloud just to see if it sounded the same.
"Ken Ichijouji."
Yes, it did. Boy genius, Ken Ichijouji. It had an old, familiar--yet foreign--ring to it.
For just one second, he wished he was fifteen again, and had never discovered the Digital World. Getting ready to sleep in the bunk bed over the sliding door in his old room in the apartment building with his parents.
And then, the thought of his parents made him angry. He remembered his brother Sam, and suddenly home went back to being uninviting.
He went outside his bathroom into his bedroom. He had a large bed. ~Why did I have everything built so big? It makes everything seem empty. Such a large bed for one person all alone. It seems--kind of lonely.~
Ken was upset with himself. He was being far too emotional today. He was letting his soft side into his conscious thoughts. Usually he kept it so well-hidden that even he forgot it existed.
Dimming the lights down all the way until there was just enough light so he wouldn't trip if he got up in the night, he laid down in the bed between the midnight-blue silk sheets and rolled over on his side to try to sleep.
But he couldn't.
He thought back to earlier in the day, when he had been to see the DigiDestined.
He remembered the look in Yolei's eyes. When she had surprised him just by looking at him, when he had hit her.
~She was pretty.~
He had not allowed himself to think about it all the rest of the day, but now he was finally alone and he came to that conclusion. Yolei, in the midst of her fear of him and her defiance, was pretty.
She had always had a crush on him--no, on Ken. She had always hated him as the Digimon Kaiser.
~But aren't we one and the same?~
Ken let his thoughts travel in another direction as he shifted positions, trying to get comfortable.
It got very lonely. Besides the prisoners he never spoke with, the only being with the free will to make conversation was Wormmon, and Wormmon was not a good conversationalist. Well, maybe he was. Ken had never tried to find out.
Often he wished for companionship. Not during the day--his business about the DigiWorld kept him busy--but the times like now, he wished there was someone to discuss things like this with.
He sat up and buzzed for Wormmon, who stayed in the control room unless ordered to do something.
The small, green digimon was in the room within a few minutes. "Yes, Master?" he asked in a normal tone, but his expression gave him away. He had never seen Ken at night, and he was surprised to see the "old" Ken and not the Kaiser.
"Wormmon, do you ever get lonely?"
Wormmon inched closer to the bed, and finally jumped up on it. Ken did not protest, and Wormmon was surprised again. Ken was letting a lot slide tonight. Wormmon decided to speak his mind. "No, Master, I have you."
~He still thinks of me as Ken. But how could he consider me good company? I push him around all the time, and kick him, and...anyway...~ "But, I..."
"You still talk to me, even if you are mean to me when you do." Wormmon flinched, sure he'd said too much and that he was going to get hurt for it.
Ken laid back down, surprising him again. Wormmon started to back off.
"No. I order you to stay right there," Ken said. ~Even when I look like this, I am still the Kaiser.~ Inside, he wondered if that was good or bad, but refused to think of it in words. That only solidified the thought. "Tell me, Wormmon, do you think I get lonely?"
Wormmon cowered. ~What kind of trick is this? What does he want?~ "I know you do, Master. I'm no human. Digimon can get along without digimon if they have a human, but humans need humans."
Ken rolled over on his side, facing Wormmon. "I see." He closed his eyes and yawned in the darkness. "So what do you think I ought to do about it?"
Wormmon was thoroughly confused, but so far, the truth had not gotten him in trouble, so he decided to go on telling it. "Well, Master, I think you ought to let those DigiDestined out of their cells so they can wander the base--of course the control room and engines would have to be locked--and then try to make friends with them."
Ken laughed. "As long as I am the Kaiser, they will never be my friends."
"Well, you need to do something, Master. The loneliness is making you sick. You've lost weight."
~He noticed?~ Ken was surprised that the digimon he could be so mean to cared about him at all. It was true, though, he had lost weight, and he had been thin to start with. "Wormmon, I can't do what you suggest. You know it would weaken my defenses a hundredfold."
Wormmon frowned. ~What I suggest? Since when does he care about anything I say?~
Ken was thinking almost the same thing. ~Why? Why do I care? Why do I seem to be taking him seriously? What is this feeling?~
Wormmon finally spoke. "You could go to them."
Ken had fallen halfway asleep, but Wormmon's words woke him fully. "What do you mean?"
"Well, Master, just go down to them and sit. Spend time with them. You might win them over."
Ken thought about it, although less and less by the second...until finally sleep claimed him and he drifted into oblivion.
A/N: Six pages this time. This could take a while. Funny, it didn't seem that long while I wrote it. Oh well, tune in next time.
A/N: Not much has happened, hard to recap. All I did was basically explain the situation. Read on.
Davis and Kari were on the living room couch. She let him kiss her, and then when he leaned back, she went right with him. She kissed him, and he wrapped his arms around her waist. She had her arms around his neck. She giggled quietly. He kept leaning further back until he was laying down on the couch and Kari was laying on top of him.
"Kari..." he whispered. "I love you."
"I love you, too, Dai-kun, but I think we should go somewhere else to continue."
"Like where? My rooo--"
Kari placed a finger on his lips. "Maybe. But I'm not gonna fool around until you can give me a ring and a ceremony."
"I know that--I respect that--and Kari-chan, I wish I could give you those things. But I don't know if a marriage in the Digital World would be legal in the real world. If we ever got out..."
"Dai-kun, it's been six years. Don't you think that it's a little unlikely that we'll ever get out?"
"Well..."
Kari sighed, and laid her chin down on his chest, locking his eyes with hers. "I think that if we did get out, it would be legal. When someone moves to another country, their marriage is legal even if their ceremony is different than the customary one of the new country."
"Well, okay. But still, do you think we could get Ken to let us?"
Almost immediately, tears formed in her eyes. "I don't know, Dai-kun. I just don't know." She started to cry.
He ran his hand over her back reassuringly. "Shh...it's okay, Kari-chan. I'll do what I can as soon as I can."
Just then, a door opened. Kari jerked her head up and looked toward the doors of their suites. Nope. Nothing. She looked around and her eyes rested on a figure in the dark hallway outside the four walls.
"Who's there?"
Davis was on the alert. That heavy, metal door usually only opened at mealtimes, and that was a while off. He sat up, Kari in his lap. She backed off so that she was next to him. He grabbed hold of her shoulders. "Who are you?" he asked defensively, staring at the open doorway.
The dark figure of Ken, the Digimon Kaiser, came in through the door, followed by Wormmon.
Kari stiffened. Davis got in front of her. "If you want her, you have to get through me."
"How touching," Ken laughed. "But it doesn't matter. I am here to see all of you." He turned around. "Wormmon! Fetch the rest of them!"
"Yes, Master." Wormmon went to the doors of the other DigiDestined and quickly got them all out in the living room.
Ken surveyed the lot before him.
Takeru, better known as T.K., Takaishi. Looked like the typical American boy-next-door, even if he was Japanese. Tall, blond, blue-eyed. Maybe handsome. Ken wasn't sure what women thought of men. In fact, when it came to women, he had no clue whatsoever. But he knew the look in T.K.'s eyes at that moment would freeze fire.
Hikari, or just Kari, Kamiya. Pretty, but not worth wasting his time. He knew she loved Davis. Geez, their position when he had walked in--! She had let her hair grow out--just a little bit. It still didn't reach her shoulders. It framed her small, frightened face nicely. Ken wondered if she always looked like that or if it was the sight of him that was making her tremble. He figured it was his presence--Kari always had been scared of him and the powers of darkness he represented.
Daisuke You-better-call-me-Davis Motomiya. Still wearing those ridiculous goggles. What was the point? Sure, Ken himself wore those yellow sunglasses, but at least he wore his over his eyes. Davis's appearance had changed little, other than that he was taller, his jawline was stronger, his expression harder.
Iori, Cody to his friends, Hida. Just becoming a man. Tall. He'd been the shortest of the DigiDestined, short even for his age, and now he was six feet tall. Broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed. Of course, Ken was sure the eyes were as soft as they always had been when he wasn't around.
Miyako--who had always hated her name and asked to be called Yolei, which she liked a lot better--Inoue. She still wore the same kerchief, now well-worn, on her head. Her violet hair trailed down over her shoulders, and--and---what else could he tell? She was not looking up at him with a hard or frightened face as were the rest. In fact, she was looking at the floor.
He pulled his whip out. He held onto both ends, not flicking it out to hurt like usual. He made a loop of it, pulled it tight enough so it wouldn't flop, and placed it under Yolei's chin, pushing it upwards to force her to look at him.
Her eyes were closed underneath her wire-framed glasses.
"Look at me!" Ken demanded, pushing her face upward a little more.
It was starting to hurt Yolei, just a little, and she opened her eyes so suddenly it almost surprised Ken.
Those eyes--!
Her brown eyes were not harsh, nor scared. They were not admiring.
They were--surprised. Like she had--even in that split second--seen something in him she was not expecting.
"What's the matter, Inoue?" Ken spat. "You look like you've never seen a Kaiser before."
Suddenly she was angry. "I still haven't!"
Ken's anger came just as quickly. He withdrew the loop of whip from under her chin and smacked her over the head with it.
She put a hand over the spot, not saying anything, but staring at him contemptuously.
Ken stepped back a bit. "I am sure you're all wondering why I'm here."
T.K. frowned. "No, no, you lock us away for six years and then suddenly show up and drag us all out here. I'm not in the least curious."
"Shut up, Takaishi. I still haven't forgiven you for punching me that day and if I hear any more out of you you'll be duly punished." Ken lifted his whip in warning.
T.K. bit his lip. He was tempted to try punching him again, but the digimon slave guards that he knew were out in the hall made him keep his peace.
"Truthfully, there was no reason, other than to see how you like it here. Apparently being imprisoned has done you no physical harm. None of you look sick. Tell me, what do you think of this?"
No one spoke. Things were okay the way they were. If anyone complained, or asked for anything, there was a possibility he meant to give it to them, but on the other hand, he might use their complaining as an excuse to put them in a far worse situation.
But...
Davis raised his hand, almost as if he was in school.
Ken grinned, just a little, to himself. "Well, Motomiya, what is it?"
"Um...Ken, Kaiser, sir, um..."
Ken flicked his whip forward, not hitting Davis, but letting it dangle in his face. "I don't *have* all day. Just spit it out."
"Well...Kaiser...everything is great, except for two things."
"One being that you're here," Ken guessed.
"Well, yeah, that's not good, but I meant that if we *have* to stay here, there's two things wrong with being here." He paused.
"Well? What *are* they?" Ken was impatient as usual.
"Well, Kaiser sir, we have no idea what's going on outside. What happened to the Digital World? And what about our world? Our families?"
"Oh, that." Ken spat. "I'll have one of my slaves bring you the records and after that a daily report on the Digital World. I can't get information about the real world. I've tried. What's the other thing?"
"Well, Kaiser, sir...Kari and I want to get married."
The other four jerked their heads up, even Kari. Not because of the want, that was no surprise, but the fact that Davis dared to ask for it.
Ken laughed. "Well, what should it matter to me? Why shouldn't you? But I don't think the Digital World has a marriage ceremony."
Davis frowned. "We just want a ceremony and papers stating it's legal so that--so that--"
"So that when I die and you get to go home people won't call you shameless?"
"We get to go home when you die?" Cody asked.
Ken smirked. "Sure, why should I care then? But the odds are in my favor. I'll probably long outlive all of you. Motomiya--when?"
Davis blinked and looked at Kari. "What do you think?"
"Dai-kun, we've been together for five years...I don't care if we are only nineteen...I'm ready anytime."
Davis hugged her close, and turned his face toward Ken. "You heard her. As soon as possible."
Ken nodded. "So be it." He turned on his heel and left the room, the door closing behind him.
The sound of the lock clicking had never been louder.
The records of the Digital World were brought that night. The five took turns reading aloud. It was a horrible experience, but one that none of them would have missed for anything in their present situation.
Everything was under Ken's control. He really was Kaiser over the entire Digital World, and no one complained because there was only one living Digimon that did not have a Dark Spiral, and that was Wormmon. Even the DigiDestined's digimon were under the spell. Veemon, Hawkmon, Armadillomon, Patamon, and Gatomon were Ken's personal slaves.
"So that's why he didn't kill them. It was more fun to rub it in," T.K. said. "I always wondered."
Kari started crying, softly. "I never did. I was just too grateful that they were alive to care why."
Davis put an arm around her. "It's all right, Kari-chan. You're right. All that matters is that they're alive."
They were up late, reading the stack of papers that chronicled the happenings of the Digital World. "It's terrible," Cody said, hugging his knees to his chest. "All those Digimon...and none having free will. It's injustice."
Ken was up late himself, but for a very different reason.
At nights he was not the Digimon Kaiser. He was alone. There was no one to call him Master.
He did not wear the glasses, jumpsuit, and cape that had become his trademark. He washed the gel out of his hair in the shower and it calmed down, becoming straight and falling close to his head again. He put on soft gray pajamas, and looked almost like he had before the whole Kaiser thing had started.
And for the few minutes he allowed himself to think about it, he was not the Kaiser.
He was just Ken.
Ken Ichijouji.
That night, the thought of his own name made him smile. It had been so long since anyone had said it. He said it aloud just to see if it sounded the same.
"Ken Ichijouji."
Yes, it did. Boy genius, Ken Ichijouji. It had an old, familiar--yet foreign--ring to it.
For just one second, he wished he was fifteen again, and had never discovered the Digital World. Getting ready to sleep in the bunk bed over the sliding door in his old room in the apartment building with his parents.
And then, the thought of his parents made him angry. He remembered his brother Sam, and suddenly home went back to being uninviting.
He went outside his bathroom into his bedroom. He had a large bed. ~Why did I have everything built so big? It makes everything seem empty. Such a large bed for one person all alone. It seems--kind of lonely.~
Ken was upset with himself. He was being far too emotional today. He was letting his soft side into his conscious thoughts. Usually he kept it so well-hidden that even he forgot it existed.
Dimming the lights down all the way until there was just enough light so he wouldn't trip if he got up in the night, he laid down in the bed between the midnight-blue silk sheets and rolled over on his side to try to sleep.
But he couldn't.
He thought back to earlier in the day, when he had been to see the DigiDestined.
He remembered the look in Yolei's eyes. When she had surprised him just by looking at him, when he had hit her.
~She was pretty.~
He had not allowed himself to think about it all the rest of the day, but now he was finally alone and he came to that conclusion. Yolei, in the midst of her fear of him and her defiance, was pretty.
She had always had a crush on him--no, on Ken. She had always hated him as the Digimon Kaiser.
~But aren't we one and the same?~
Ken let his thoughts travel in another direction as he shifted positions, trying to get comfortable.
It got very lonely. Besides the prisoners he never spoke with, the only being with the free will to make conversation was Wormmon, and Wormmon was not a good conversationalist. Well, maybe he was. Ken had never tried to find out.
Often he wished for companionship. Not during the day--his business about the DigiWorld kept him busy--but the times like now, he wished there was someone to discuss things like this with.
He sat up and buzzed for Wormmon, who stayed in the control room unless ordered to do something.
The small, green digimon was in the room within a few minutes. "Yes, Master?" he asked in a normal tone, but his expression gave him away. He had never seen Ken at night, and he was surprised to see the "old" Ken and not the Kaiser.
"Wormmon, do you ever get lonely?"
Wormmon inched closer to the bed, and finally jumped up on it. Ken did not protest, and Wormmon was surprised again. Ken was letting a lot slide tonight. Wormmon decided to speak his mind. "No, Master, I have you."
~He still thinks of me as Ken. But how could he consider me good company? I push him around all the time, and kick him, and...anyway...~ "But, I..."
"You still talk to me, even if you are mean to me when you do." Wormmon flinched, sure he'd said too much and that he was going to get hurt for it.
Ken laid back down, surprising him again. Wormmon started to back off.
"No. I order you to stay right there," Ken said. ~Even when I look like this, I am still the Kaiser.~ Inside, he wondered if that was good or bad, but refused to think of it in words. That only solidified the thought. "Tell me, Wormmon, do you think I get lonely?"
Wormmon cowered. ~What kind of trick is this? What does he want?~ "I know you do, Master. I'm no human. Digimon can get along without digimon if they have a human, but humans need humans."
Ken rolled over on his side, facing Wormmon. "I see." He closed his eyes and yawned in the darkness. "So what do you think I ought to do about it?"
Wormmon was thoroughly confused, but so far, the truth had not gotten him in trouble, so he decided to go on telling it. "Well, Master, I think you ought to let those DigiDestined out of their cells so they can wander the base--of course the control room and engines would have to be locked--and then try to make friends with them."
Ken laughed. "As long as I am the Kaiser, they will never be my friends."
"Well, you need to do something, Master. The loneliness is making you sick. You've lost weight."
~He noticed?~ Ken was surprised that the digimon he could be so mean to cared about him at all. It was true, though, he had lost weight, and he had been thin to start with. "Wormmon, I can't do what you suggest. You know it would weaken my defenses a hundredfold."
Wormmon frowned. ~What I suggest? Since when does he care about anything I say?~
Ken was thinking almost the same thing. ~Why? Why do I care? Why do I seem to be taking him seriously? What is this feeling?~
Wormmon finally spoke. "You could go to them."
Ken had fallen halfway asleep, but Wormmon's words woke him fully. "What do you mean?"
"Well, Master, just go down to them and sit. Spend time with them. You might win them over."
Ken thought about it, although less and less by the second...until finally sleep claimed him and he drifted into oblivion.
A/N: Six pages this time. This could take a while. Funny, it didn't seem that long while I wrote it. Oh well, tune in next time.