DISCLAIMER: I do not own Digimon or any of its characters. I just like to torture them. Please don't sue.
A/N: Secrets abound...well, okay, there's only one secret, but it's big. Um, the cussing gets a bit stronger in this chapter, but it's in Japanese. If you really want to know what they mean, e-mail me--don't ask in a review, E-MAIL ME. RenaissanceGrrl@excite.com
Yolei managed to keep herself acting just unhappy enough to convince everyone. No one suspected. At lunch--supposedly the third one where she had not seen Ken--she had to act a little more "down", but she pulled it off. After lunch, everyone again crowded into Cody's bedroom behind his video game to continue the tournament. Apparently T.K. had challenged "the winner"--Kari--and Davis challenged the next winner--who was yet to be determined.
Yolei slipped into her room, alone. She wrote the note and tucked it down in her shirt until it was time to go. She stuffed some--aheh--feminine things, into a small purse that she could keep out of the line of vision as she left the room and hid it under the bed.
Now, just to while away the time.
She finished the book T.K. had loaned her. She caught the last hour of the tournament. She straightened up her suite. Dinner came and went.
Finally, the time came. Yolei was alone in her room, since she had told Hawkmon that she needed time alone and he had gone out to watch a movie with everyone else.
The two Pagumon came to the main door, and Kari came and told Yolei through the door to her suite.
~Yes!~ she thought, slipping the note under her pillow. Hawkmon would look there, she knew, as soon as it was so late they worried. He knew she had a habit of hiding important things under her pillow. She held the purse in her hand so that it would no be seen by those on the couch.
Kari was waiting outside her door, fortunately in the same direction away from her as the guys, who were sprawled over the couch.
"Are you sure you want to see him?"
Yolei sighed. "Maybe he's going to apologize for the vanishing act."
Kari just shook her head. "Be sure you know what you want. Do you want him to go on doing things and apologizing all your life, or do you want to be free?"
"If he sets a pattern like that, I'll reevaluate, I promise. Now, please, Kari...I really am desperate to see him..."
"Well...okay..." Kari sighed. "Be careful." She went back over to Davis's lap.
Yolei quickly went through the door. The last thing she heard from inside the room before the lock clicked was Hawkmon's appeal of, "Hurry back, my dear!"
She winced.
Ken surveyed himself in the huge bathroom mirror. Black jumpsuit, no glasses, same cape, same hair. Yes. Perfect.
He had not seen Yolei's wedding gown. He had told the Floramon what she might like, but he had no clue if she *would* like it.
As a matter of fact, he had given the Pagumon orders to take her to another room to change, since he did not want to see her before the ceremony--which would be performed by the same Elecmon who had done Davis and Kari's.
He sighed. He had gone completely soft. There was little Kaiser left in him, and what was left was there because of his foolish pride, because he so desperately wanted to keep his "image".
His...heartless image.
~I know I have a heart. It's growing bigger by the minute, expanding to surround my love for Yolei. So *why* do I want to keep that image?~
He pushed the thoughts aside as Wormmon came into the room. "Master..."
"What?"
"Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Yolei is changing clothes right now. She said that the dress is perfect, and she said to leave this here." Wormmon placed a small purse that was apparently Yolei's things on the countertop. She'd listened and packed light. "She said that it's mostly just girl stuff."
Ken raised an eyebrow. He was pretty sure he knew what that meant, and as such, dared not touch it. "How long before she's ready?"
"About ten minutes. You better get out there."
"Did you ask her if she minded getting married in the living room?"
"She said that she was glad because she'd been afraid it was going to be the Control Room."
Ken frowned thinking of the vast Control room with its walls so dark it was hard to tell there were walls. He spent entirely too much of his time there, but not by choice. "I think not. Anyway, I'm headed out there."
Yolei was not sure what room she was in, other than that it was connected to the Control Room and from there she would be able to go through a door to her waiting Ken. A few Floramon were in there helping her get ready. There was a wide, full-length mirror, and she was putting it to good use.
The dress fit perfectly. The skirt was long, and full, and the entire dress was strewn in seed pearls sewn on by hand in small flower patterns. The waistline was dropped three or four inches, accentuating her height. She liked that. The neckline was higher than she'd been expecting, considering it was Ken who had given the Floramon their instructions, but it still looked pretty good, going straight across just below her collarbone. She turned before the mirror to reveal the back of the dress. Her shoulder blades showed, but that didn't bother her. She loved the way the white satin looked on her. For one of the few times in her life, Yolei felt really beautiful. Of course, she had felt pretty, every girl does at some time or another, if not all the time, but there were only a few times that she'd really felt knock-'em-dead *beautiful*. ~Wow...how he knew what I would like is beyond me...but I love this dress!~
The top part of her hair had been pulled up into a ponytail to give them something to fasten the veil to, but other than that little bit, it hung free like usual. She liked the effect.
Finally, the door cracked open, and Wormmon poked his head through. "Can I look?"
She laughed, seeing his eyes were closed. "Yeah. Is it time?" she asked, barely able to keep her excitement in check.
He opened his eyes and stared. "You look beautiful. Master will like it. Umm...yes, it's time! Follow me."
She stood, gathering up her skirt so it wouldn't drag, and followed him out the door. ~Yuck. Control Room.~ Across the dark room, and over to another door, and then...
Wormmon opened the door and she peeked around. "Ken?"
"Yolei."
He was standing there waiting. There was an Elecmon behind him, and they were waiting for her.
And she was ready...
Kari came out into the living room. Davis was curled up in a corner of the couch watching a movie, with Veemon snuggled next to him. Gatomon was asleep on their own couch.
She came and watched silently from behind the couch for a few minutes. It looked interesting enough.
She sat down on the other side of Veemon and sighed.
"What is it, Kari-chan?" Davis asked. He sat up despite the fact that Veemon was asleep. Veemon didn't stir. "What's the matter?"
She shook her head. "I'm worried about Yolei. One minute he won't even speak to her, the next he invites her up there and she stays for, what has it been? Half-an-hour at least."
"I wouldn't worry. Relax. Watch this movie with me. Trade places with Veemon."
She smiled, disheartened. "Well, okay." She picked Veemon up and laid him carefully at the other end of the couch. The blue digimon sighed in his sleep, muttered Gatomon's name, and fell back into his trance. Kari slid over into Davis's arms and sat quietly. "I just feel like something is wrong."
"It's nothing to worry over," Davis tried to reassure her, trying to keep the tenseness out of his voice. ~Yet.~
The ceremony was over, and Ken had whisked Yolei off to the bedroom rather quickly after dismissing the Elecmon.
Now she sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for him. He had wanted to take a shower. Why he hadn't done that before, she was not sure, but whatever. She was too happy to care.
She liked his room. Apparently, blue and black were his favorite colors. The soft carpet was dark gray, the bedframe was black, the comforter, black chenille, the sheets, midnight blue silk. Far nicer than anything Yolei had ever had.
The lighting was turned down low, and dark blue candles burned on both nightstands. The sheets had been turned down, and sakura petals had been scattered over them. The pale blush-pink was a sharp contrast to all the darkness in the room, and she liked the effect.
And in a few minutes, Ken would be back, and they would have their first night of wedded bliss. Yolei was looking forward to it and scared of it at the same time. She smiled, thinking of her Ken. He seemed almost afraid of her. Even at the end of the ceremony, when he was told to kiss her, he had kissed the top of her head. She wasn't upset, because it was just...so...*him*. She'd always remember it.
Kari frowned. The movie was over. Yolei was not back. She went to the door of Yolei's suite and knocked. Hawkmon answered it sleepily. "Oh. Kari. What do you want?"
"Did Yolei say when she'd be back?"
"No, I know as much as you do, but I *am* starting to worry a bit..."
"You guys," Davis said from the couch, "I'm sure she's fine."
Finally, the door from the bathroom cracked open.
Yolei blinked at Ken, the surprise evident on her face. "Ken?"
He laughed half-heartedly, leaning against the doorjamb. He was in the gray pajamas, his hair calmed down once again. Yes. He was not the Digimon Kaiser. He enjoyed the look on her face. "Surprise," he said, softly.
"I *am* surprised...but...not disappointed."
He smiled and came over, sitting close, next to her. He was ready for this. "I love you, Yolei."
She blushed and looked down at her lap. "I love you too...I don't love what you've done, but I do love you."
He sighed. "Yolei, I've made a decision."
She looked up. "What's that?"
He grinned halfway. He almost never smiled fully, and Yolei thought it made him all the cuter. "Well, Yolei, you've opened my eyes. I've been doing a lot of thinking ever since the day I--I smacked you with my whip--I can't believe I would ever do that--"
She smiled. "It's okay. You've changed. I've forgiven you."
"Thanks." He paused. "And I see it now. The Digital World is not some game for my amusement. Starting tomorrow morning, you and your friends are completely free to roam the base. We're all going to make plans to disband the Empire. Get the Digimon recruited to help undo what I've done and then settled back into their own lives. I'm relinquishing control. And what's more, I'm going to see what I can do about setting things up to prevent anybody like...like me, from taking over again. I was going to surprise you in the morning, but I think it's best that we get started off on the right foot."
She stared in shock, plain and simple. Pure, unadulterated shock.
"Ken...I have waited forever to hear you say those words." She did not blush.
"And it feels so good to tell you...I feel more like Ken than I have in a long time. And to Hell with the Kaiser!"
She laughed, and he laughed right along with her.
And then he took her shoulder in his hand, pulled her close, and kissed the top of her head. She felt his arms encircle her waist, and she slipped her own arms around his neck. She was about to be kissed on the lips for the first time in her life--and so much more than that. Thinking back over her life, at fifteen she never would have dreamed that she would be married and on her honeymoon bed before getting her first real kiss.
She felt his forehead touch hers, and their noses barely touch. And just as she felt the brush of his lips barely touch hers, things went badly wrong.
A purring, teasing woman's voice could be heard from the foot of the bed. "About to enjoy ourselves, are we?"
Ken jerked away from Yolei and looked toward where it had come from.
And they both stared at a tall woman in odd clothes. (A/N: the description will give her away to *us*, but remember they have never had an encounter with her before in this timeline.) The first thing you noticed about her was that she had purple sunglasses over her eyes, the high collar of her red coat covered the lower half of her face, and her weird red hat was pulled down so that it bumped her sunglasses. The second thing you noticed was her paleness. Her skin was beyond milky-white. She looked like she had never seen the sun; or like she had dusted herself in baby powder. Her hair was white with a pale blue tint, like an old woman's, but her figure betrayed her. Going by that, she seemed to be a curvaceous woman in her early thirties.
"Who are you and what the hell do you want?" Ken asked, immediately defensive, knowing nothing about this intruder. "If you don't mind..."
"Oh, but I do. I thought maybe you were leading the girl on, but no. I see now that you really do love her. If I let things go on, all my plans would crumble before me. So now we have to rearrange the process to accommodate the technicalities. Not a problem."
Yolei shrunk up, scared out of her wits, not able to think. How could she have been so happy mere seconds before? She grabbed Ken's shoulders from behind and clung, tightly. Her fingernails were digging into him.
"Who the hell are you, bakayaro?" Ken repeated.
"You'll soon find out. *You're* coming with me." The woman snapped her fingers, and she vanished.
Ken screamed in pain, making Yolei scream in fright, and she tried to put her arms around his waist, but in that second, he vanished, and her arms came right back at her.
She looked around in terrorized confusion. "Nande kuso? Kami! Kami, Kami, KamiKamiKami!" She started crying in loud sobs. Finally she shook her head and headed for the door. "Wormmon!"
Kari, Davis, and Hawkmon were still debating what to do when, suddenly, Hawkmon shook his head. "Itai!"
"What is it?" Kari asked as his eyes squinted shut, seemingly in pain.
As quickly as it had come, it was over, and he blinked. "Something's wrong. Something bad has happened and she didn't like it one bit. She screamed, she's confused...we have to find her! See if she left any clues!" He ran into her suite, and Kari and Davis followed close behind. They were confused when he headed for her bed and shoved the pillow aside. "Goal!" he cried, remembering the old word from Davis's soccer games. He held up a piece of paper.
Kari scrambled for it, and quickly scanned the penciled lines. "It's her handwriting," she said. "Come on, I think we need to get the others."
Within minutes, all four of the present DigiDestined, their digimon, and Hawkmon were assembled in the main room, and Kari read the note aloud.
"Guys--I know that it won't take Hawkmon long to find this. Sorry I had to pull the vanishing act like that, but once I explain why I went, you'll understand that if I had told you, I'd still be there with you. Ken..." --Kari gasped-- "Ken asked me to marry him. By the time you find this, we'll probably already be husband and wife. I'll be back in a few days with Ken. I'll miss you all in the meantime. Hawkmon--I'm sorry I couldn't even tell you, but I hope you understand. Cody--I know you don't like Ken, but I am completely, hopelessly fallen in true love and I know that he's the one. See you all soon, soon-to-be-Ichijouji Yolei." Kari bit her lip.
"Are we just going stand idly by and let this go on?" Davis cried.
"I'd like to see you suggest something plausible," Cody said. "There isn't anything we can do until breakfast tomorrow at the earliest. Then we could jump the guard or something."
T.K. nodded. "But...the thing is...by tomorrow morning...they'll have already...you know...*consummated* the marriage...and then they can't revoke it..."
At this point, all the humans were blushing quite red.
"What's he talkin' about?" Armadillomon asked Cody, making Cody turn roughly the color of a stop sign.
"Later. I will explain that *later*," Cody said abruptly, not wanting to delve into the workings of the human body.
"So what do we do?" Davis asked, breaking the tense silence.
Kari looked down and sighed. "Guys," she said, catching all their attention. "I don't think any of you realize that she honestly does love him. Now how or why I don't even claim to understand, but I do know that she probably doesn't *want* to break up this marriage. It's what she wants. Now, I agree, we should try and make Ken good, but we should not in any way try to hurt him, or break them up. It would crush her."
T.K., Cody, and Davis exchanged looks.
"Promise me, guys?" she begged. "Davis?" Her lower lip trembled.
Davis groaned inwardly. ~Aww man, she knows I can't resist...~ "I promise," he said.
T.K. nodded. ~If a guy can't trust his best friend, who can he trust?~ "I promise, too."
Cody frowned. ~How can they do this? Promise not to hurt the Digimon Kaiser!~
Kari looked at him with tear-filled eyes. "Cody...please promise me...if not for me, then promise me on Yolei's behalf..."
Oh. That was how. "I promise," he said, unsure of it even as he said it, but determined not to break his promise.
Wormmon had been half-asleep on the couch, but her high-pitched cry for his help brought him to consciousness. "What is it, Yolei-sama?"
She frowned. ~Sama?~ Probably something Ken had ordered him to call her. She'd ask later. There wasn't time to care. "Ken's vanished!"
"What?!"
"This funky lady appeared out of nowhere and disappeared back into it, and she took Ken with her! She said something about plans crumbling and rearranging processes and I don't know what she meant!" Yolei fell to the floor, still in the beautiful gown that represented her rite of passage into happiness. Sobs shook her body hard. She could barely breathe for the tears.
Wormmon crawled over and placed his head in her lap comfortingly. "It's all right, Yolei-sama. We'll find him. First we have to get the others."
"Yes. Yes, we'll go get the others out of the prison. They'll help. Right? They'll believe me."
"Of course they will. And we'll go as soon as you get changed out of that dress." He backed out of her lap. "I think Master said that your new clothes are in the closet in there." He nodded towards the bedroom.
Yolei nodded and took off her glasses to wipe away enough tears so that she could see. She went into the room and set her glasses on the table to wipe them on whatever shirt she put on. The last thing she wanted to do if she could help it was spoil her wedding gown. Yolei pushed aside the sliding door and looked. Yes. She dug through the closet and found a pair of jeans and a sturdy button-front shirt. She didn't notice the color or anything, she just thought it would be prudent to choose something she could wear in battle.
"You might wanna turn around for this part," she told Wormmon as she reached behind for the zipper. He did so just in time to save himself some embarrassment. A minute or so passed. "Okay," she said. "I'm done. Come on," she stood to her feet. She got her glasses and wiped them off on her shirt, and quickly walked off toward the prison. "I hope you know how to unlock it."
"I can't do it because I don't have small fingers, but I can tell you how to do it..."
"Close enough. So long as we get the rest of them out of there."
The rest of the DigiDestined had just decided to go to sleep so they could get up early--in plenty of time to jump the guard--when there was a rattle in the lock.
Kari jerked her head toward it. "Oh no...it's Ken here to gloat, or Yolei running away, or something bad..."
The door pushed open, and it was indeed Yolei. She was in new clothes, and she'd been crying, but she had put on a brave face.
Hawkmon, Kari and Cody all ran and hugged her at once. "Yolei, what's happened?" Hawkmon cried.
"Yolei? That's Mrs. Ichijouji to you, buddy. But we have bigger things to worry about. Ken's disappeared!"
Davis blinked. "Why don't you come in, sit down, and explain?"
Yolei nodded. They dragged a footstool over to the door to hold it open, and she started doing just that.
A/N: And what of Ken? You'll have to wait until the next chapter! That's why this is a bit shorter.
A/N: Secrets abound...well, okay, there's only one secret, but it's big. Um, the cussing gets a bit stronger in this chapter, but it's in Japanese. If you really want to know what they mean, e-mail me--don't ask in a review, E-MAIL ME. RenaissanceGrrl@excite.com
Yolei managed to keep herself acting just unhappy enough to convince everyone. No one suspected. At lunch--supposedly the third one where she had not seen Ken--she had to act a little more "down", but she pulled it off. After lunch, everyone again crowded into Cody's bedroom behind his video game to continue the tournament. Apparently T.K. had challenged "the winner"--Kari--and Davis challenged the next winner--who was yet to be determined.
Yolei slipped into her room, alone. She wrote the note and tucked it down in her shirt until it was time to go. She stuffed some--aheh--feminine things, into a small purse that she could keep out of the line of vision as she left the room and hid it under the bed.
Now, just to while away the time.
She finished the book T.K. had loaned her. She caught the last hour of the tournament. She straightened up her suite. Dinner came and went.
Finally, the time came. Yolei was alone in her room, since she had told Hawkmon that she needed time alone and he had gone out to watch a movie with everyone else.
The two Pagumon came to the main door, and Kari came and told Yolei through the door to her suite.
~Yes!~ she thought, slipping the note under her pillow. Hawkmon would look there, she knew, as soon as it was so late they worried. He knew she had a habit of hiding important things under her pillow. She held the purse in her hand so that it would no be seen by those on the couch.
Kari was waiting outside her door, fortunately in the same direction away from her as the guys, who were sprawled over the couch.
"Are you sure you want to see him?"
Yolei sighed. "Maybe he's going to apologize for the vanishing act."
Kari just shook her head. "Be sure you know what you want. Do you want him to go on doing things and apologizing all your life, or do you want to be free?"
"If he sets a pattern like that, I'll reevaluate, I promise. Now, please, Kari...I really am desperate to see him..."
"Well...okay..." Kari sighed. "Be careful." She went back over to Davis's lap.
Yolei quickly went through the door. The last thing she heard from inside the room before the lock clicked was Hawkmon's appeal of, "Hurry back, my dear!"
She winced.
Ken surveyed himself in the huge bathroom mirror. Black jumpsuit, no glasses, same cape, same hair. Yes. Perfect.
He had not seen Yolei's wedding gown. He had told the Floramon what she might like, but he had no clue if she *would* like it.
As a matter of fact, he had given the Pagumon orders to take her to another room to change, since he did not want to see her before the ceremony--which would be performed by the same Elecmon who had done Davis and Kari's.
He sighed. He had gone completely soft. There was little Kaiser left in him, and what was left was there because of his foolish pride, because he so desperately wanted to keep his "image".
His...heartless image.
~I know I have a heart. It's growing bigger by the minute, expanding to surround my love for Yolei. So *why* do I want to keep that image?~
He pushed the thoughts aside as Wormmon came into the room. "Master..."
"What?"
"Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Yolei is changing clothes right now. She said that the dress is perfect, and she said to leave this here." Wormmon placed a small purse that was apparently Yolei's things on the countertop. She'd listened and packed light. "She said that it's mostly just girl stuff."
Ken raised an eyebrow. He was pretty sure he knew what that meant, and as such, dared not touch it. "How long before she's ready?"
"About ten minutes. You better get out there."
"Did you ask her if she minded getting married in the living room?"
"She said that she was glad because she'd been afraid it was going to be the Control Room."
Ken frowned thinking of the vast Control room with its walls so dark it was hard to tell there were walls. He spent entirely too much of his time there, but not by choice. "I think not. Anyway, I'm headed out there."
Yolei was not sure what room she was in, other than that it was connected to the Control Room and from there she would be able to go through a door to her waiting Ken. A few Floramon were in there helping her get ready. There was a wide, full-length mirror, and she was putting it to good use.
The dress fit perfectly. The skirt was long, and full, and the entire dress was strewn in seed pearls sewn on by hand in small flower patterns. The waistline was dropped three or four inches, accentuating her height. She liked that. The neckline was higher than she'd been expecting, considering it was Ken who had given the Floramon their instructions, but it still looked pretty good, going straight across just below her collarbone. She turned before the mirror to reveal the back of the dress. Her shoulder blades showed, but that didn't bother her. She loved the way the white satin looked on her. For one of the few times in her life, Yolei felt really beautiful. Of course, she had felt pretty, every girl does at some time or another, if not all the time, but there were only a few times that she'd really felt knock-'em-dead *beautiful*. ~Wow...how he knew what I would like is beyond me...but I love this dress!~
The top part of her hair had been pulled up into a ponytail to give them something to fasten the veil to, but other than that little bit, it hung free like usual. She liked the effect.
Finally, the door cracked open, and Wormmon poked his head through. "Can I look?"
She laughed, seeing his eyes were closed. "Yeah. Is it time?" she asked, barely able to keep her excitement in check.
He opened his eyes and stared. "You look beautiful. Master will like it. Umm...yes, it's time! Follow me."
She stood, gathering up her skirt so it wouldn't drag, and followed him out the door. ~Yuck. Control Room.~ Across the dark room, and over to another door, and then...
Wormmon opened the door and she peeked around. "Ken?"
"Yolei."
He was standing there waiting. There was an Elecmon behind him, and they were waiting for her.
And she was ready...
Kari came out into the living room. Davis was curled up in a corner of the couch watching a movie, with Veemon snuggled next to him. Gatomon was asleep on their own couch.
She came and watched silently from behind the couch for a few minutes. It looked interesting enough.
She sat down on the other side of Veemon and sighed.
"What is it, Kari-chan?" Davis asked. He sat up despite the fact that Veemon was asleep. Veemon didn't stir. "What's the matter?"
She shook her head. "I'm worried about Yolei. One minute he won't even speak to her, the next he invites her up there and she stays for, what has it been? Half-an-hour at least."
"I wouldn't worry. Relax. Watch this movie with me. Trade places with Veemon."
She smiled, disheartened. "Well, okay." She picked Veemon up and laid him carefully at the other end of the couch. The blue digimon sighed in his sleep, muttered Gatomon's name, and fell back into his trance. Kari slid over into Davis's arms and sat quietly. "I just feel like something is wrong."
"It's nothing to worry over," Davis tried to reassure her, trying to keep the tenseness out of his voice. ~Yet.~
The ceremony was over, and Ken had whisked Yolei off to the bedroom rather quickly after dismissing the Elecmon.
Now she sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for him. He had wanted to take a shower. Why he hadn't done that before, she was not sure, but whatever. She was too happy to care.
She liked his room. Apparently, blue and black were his favorite colors. The soft carpet was dark gray, the bedframe was black, the comforter, black chenille, the sheets, midnight blue silk. Far nicer than anything Yolei had ever had.
The lighting was turned down low, and dark blue candles burned on both nightstands. The sheets had been turned down, and sakura petals had been scattered over them. The pale blush-pink was a sharp contrast to all the darkness in the room, and she liked the effect.
And in a few minutes, Ken would be back, and they would have their first night of wedded bliss. Yolei was looking forward to it and scared of it at the same time. She smiled, thinking of her Ken. He seemed almost afraid of her. Even at the end of the ceremony, when he was told to kiss her, he had kissed the top of her head. She wasn't upset, because it was just...so...*him*. She'd always remember it.
Kari frowned. The movie was over. Yolei was not back. She went to the door of Yolei's suite and knocked. Hawkmon answered it sleepily. "Oh. Kari. What do you want?"
"Did Yolei say when she'd be back?"
"No, I know as much as you do, but I *am* starting to worry a bit..."
"You guys," Davis said from the couch, "I'm sure she's fine."
Finally, the door from the bathroom cracked open.
Yolei blinked at Ken, the surprise evident on her face. "Ken?"
He laughed half-heartedly, leaning against the doorjamb. He was in the gray pajamas, his hair calmed down once again. Yes. He was not the Digimon Kaiser. He enjoyed the look on her face. "Surprise," he said, softly.
"I *am* surprised...but...not disappointed."
He smiled and came over, sitting close, next to her. He was ready for this. "I love you, Yolei."
She blushed and looked down at her lap. "I love you too...I don't love what you've done, but I do love you."
He sighed. "Yolei, I've made a decision."
She looked up. "What's that?"
He grinned halfway. He almost never smiled fully, and Yolei thought it made him all the cuter. "Well, Yolei, you've opened my eyes. I've been doing a lot of thinking ever since the day I--I smacked you with my whip--I can't believe I would ever do that--"
She smiled. "It's okay. You've changed. I've forgiven you."
"Thanks." He paused. "And I see it now. The Digital World is not some game for my amusement. Starting tomorrow morning, you and your friends are completely free to roam the base. We're all going to make plans to disband the Empire. Get the Digimon recruited to help undo what I've done and then settled back into their own lives. I'm relinquishing control. And what's more, I'm going to see what I can do about setting things up to prevent anybody like...like me, from taking over again. I was going to surprise you in the morning, but I think it's best that we get started off on the right foot."
She stared in shock, plain and simple. Pure, unadulterated shock.
"Ken...I have waited forever to hear you say those words." She did not blush.
"And it feels so good to tell you...I feel more like Ken than I have in a long time. And to Hell with the Kaiser!"
She laughed, and he laughed right along with her.
And then he took her shoulder in his hand, pulled her close, and kissed the top of her head. She felt his arms encircle her waist, and she slipped her own arms around his neck. She was about to be kissed on the lips for the first time in her life--and so much more than that. Thinking back over her life, at fifteen she never would have dreamed that she would be married and on her honeymoon bed before getting her first real kiss.
She felt his forehead touch hers, and their noses barely touch. And just as she felt the brush of his lips barely touch hers, things went badly wrong.
A purring, teasing woman's voice could be heard from the foot of the bed. "About to enjoy ourselves, are we?"
Ken jerked away from Yolei and looked toward where it had come from.
And they both stared at a tall woman in odd clothes. (A/N: the description will give her away to *us*, but remember they have never had an encounter with her before in this timeline.) The first thing you noticed about her was that she had purple sunglasses over her eyes, the high collar of her red coat covered the lower half of her face, and her weird red hat was pulled down so that it bumped her sunglasses. The second thing you noticed was her paleness. Her skin was beyond milky-white. She looked like she had never seen the sun; or like she had dusted herself in baby powder. Her hair was white with a pale blue tint, like an old woman's, but her figure betrayed her. Going by that, she seemed to be a curvaceous woman in her early thirties.
"Who are you and what the hell do you want?" Ken asked, immediately defensive, knowing nothing about this intruder. "If you don't mind..."
"Oh, but I do. I thought maybe you were leading the girl on, but no. I see now that you really do love her. If I let things go on, all my plans would crumble before me. So now we have to rearrange the process to accommodate the technicalities. Not a problem."
Yolei shrunk up, scared out of her wits, not able to think. How could she have been so happy mere seconds before? She grabbed Ken's shoulders from behind and clung, tightly. Her fingernails were digging into him.
"Who the hell are you, bakayaro?" Ken repeated.
"You'll soon find out. *You're* coming with me." The woman snapped her fingers, and she vanished.
Ken screamed in pain, making Yolei scream in fright, and she tried to put her arms around his waist, but in that second, he vanished, and her arms came right back at her.
She looked around in terrorized confusion. "Nande kuso? Kami! Kami, Kami, KamiKamiKami!" She started crying in loud sobs. Finally she shook her head and headed for the door. "Wormmon!"
Kari, Davis, and Hawkmon were still debating what to do when, suddenly, Hawkmon shook his head. "Itai!"
"What is it?" Kari asked as his eyes squinted shut, seemingly in pain.
As quickly as it had come, it was over, and he blinked. "Something's wrong. Something bad has happened and she didn't like it one bit. She screamed, she's confused...we have to find her! See if she left any clues!" He ran into her suite, and Kari and Davis followed close behind. They were confused when he headed for her bed and shoved the pillow aside. "Goal!" he cried, remembering the old word from Davis's soccer games. He held up a piece of paper.
Kari scrambled for it, and quickly scanned the penciled lines. "It's her handwriting," she said. "Come on, I think we need to get the others."
Within minutes, all four of the present DigiDestined, their digimon, and Hawkmon were assembled in the main room, and Kari read the note aloud.
"Guys--I know that it won't take Hawkmon long to find this. Sorry I had to pull the vanishing act like that, but once I explain why I went, you'll understand that if I had told you, I'd still be there with you. Ken..." --Kari gasped-- "Ken asked me to marry him. By the time you find this, we'll probably already be husband and wife. I'll be back in a few days with Ken. I'll miss you all in the meantime. Hawkmon--I'm sorry I couldn't even tell you, but I hope you understand. Cody--I know you don't like Ken, but I am completely, hopelessly fallen in true love and I know that he's the one. See you all soon, soon-to-be-Ichijouji Yolei." Kari bit her lip.
"Are we just going stand idly by and let this go on?" Davis cried.
"I'd like to see you suggest something plausible," Cody said. "There isn't anything we can do until breakfast tomorrow at the earliest. Then we could jump the guard or something."
T.K. nodded. "But...the thing is...by tomorrow morning...they'll have already...you know...*consummated* the marriage...and then they can't revoke it..."
At this point, all the humans were blushing quite red.
"What's he talkin' about?" Armadillomon asked Cody, making Cody turn roughly the color of a stop sign.
"Later. I will explain that *later*," Cody said abruptly, not wanting to delve into the workings of the human body.
"So what do we do?" Davis asked, breaking the tense silence.
Kari looked down and sighed. "Guys," she said, catching all their attention. "I don't think any of you realize that she honestly does love him. Now how or why I don't even claim to understand, but I do know that she probably doesn't *want* to break up this marriage. It's what she wants. Now, I agree, we should try and make Ken good, but we should not in any way try to hurt him, or break them up. It would crush her."
T.K., Cody, and Davis exchanged looks.
"Promise me, guys?" she begged. "Davis?" Her lower lip trembled.
Davis groaned inwardly. ~Aww man, she knows I can't resist...~ "I promise," he said.
T.K. nodded. ~If a guy can't trust his best friend, who can he trust?~ "I promise, too."
Cody frowned. ~How can they do this? Promise not to hurt the Digimon Kaiser!~
Kari looked at him with tear-filled eyes. "Cody...please promise me...if not for me, then promise me on Yolei's behalf..."
Oh. That was how. "I promise," he said, unsure of it even as he said it, but determined not to break his promise.
Wormmon had been half-asleep on the couch, but her high-pitched cry for his help brought him to consciousness. "What is it, Yolei-sama?"
She frowned. ~Sama?~ Probably something Ken had ordered him to call her. She'd ask later. There wasn't time to care. "Ken's vanished!"
"What?!"
"This funky lady appeared out of nowhere and disappeared back into it, and she took Ken with her! She said something about plans crumbling and rearranging processes and I don't know what she meant!" Yolei fell to the floor, still in the beautiful gown that represented her rite of passage into happiness. Sobs shook her body hard. She could barely breathe for the tears.
Wormmon crawled over and placed his head in her lap comfortingly. "It's all right, Yolei-sama. We'll find him. First we have to get the others."
"Yes. Yes, we'll go get the others out of the prison. They'll help. Right? They'll believe me."
"Of course they will. And we'll go as soon as you get changed out of that dress." He backed out of her lap. "I think Master said that your new clothes are in the closet in there." He nodded towards the bedroom.
Yolei nodded and took off her glasses to wipe away enough tears so that she could see. She went into the room and set her glasses on the table to wipe them on whatever shirt she put on. The last thing she wanted to do if she could help it was spoil her wedding gown. Yolei pushed aside the sliding door and looked. Yes. She dug through the closet and found a pair of jeans and a sturdy button-front shirt. She didn't notice the color or anything, she just thought it would be prudent to choose something she could wear in battle.
"You might wanna turn around for this part," she told Wormmon as she reached behind for the zipper. He did so just in time to save himself some embarrassment. A minute or so passed. "Okay," she said. "I'm done. Come on," she stood to her feet. She got her glasses and wiped them off on her shirt, and quickly walked off toward the prison. "I hope you know how to unlock it."
"I can't do it because I don't have small fingers, but I can tell you how to do it..."
"Close enough. So long as we get the rest of them out of there."
The rest of the DigiDestined had just decided to go to sleep so they could get up early--in plenty of time to jump the guard--when there was a rattle in the lock.
Kari jerked her head toward it. "Oh no...it's Ken here to gloat, or Yolei running away, or something bad..."
The door pushed open, and it was indeed Yolei. She was in new clothes, and she'd been crying, but she had put on a brave face.
Hawkmon, Kari and Cody all ran and hugged her at once. "Yolei, what's happened?" Hawkmon cried.
"Yolei? That's Mrs. Ichijouji to you, buddy. But we have bigger things to worry about. Ken's disappeared!"
Davis blinked. "Why don't you come in, sit down, and explain?"
Yolei nodded. They dragged a footstool over to the door to hold it open, and she started doing just that.
A/N: And what of Ken? You'll have to wait until the next chapter! That's why this is a bit shorter.